


The Real Folk Blues

by moonix, nefelibata



Category: All For The Game - Nora Sakavic
Genre: Adventures In Space, Alternative Universe – Bounty Hunters, Alternative Universe – Space Travel, Bed-sharing, Cowboy Bebop AU, Demisexual Character, Flirting, Found Families, Friendship, M/M, Martial Arts, Pining, Riko who, Roadtrips, Slow Burn, Team Bonding, bounty hunters in space, certified Neil Josten Sass TM, embedded art, space casinos
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-09-03
Updated: 2018-09-03
Packaged: 2019-07-06 08:56:44
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 4
Words: 42,365
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15882783
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/moonix/pseuds/moonix, https://archiveofourown.org/users/nefelibata/pseuds/nefelibata
Summary: Captain David Wymack and the bounty hunter crew of the Bebop spaceship might be a little out of their depths chasing down the infamous hacker and notorious runaway Neil Wesninski, whose bounty exceeds even Kevin's wildest dreams. Worst of all, Andrew might actually enjoy it.





	1. Cosmic Dare (Pretty With A Pistol)

**Author's Note:**

> The title and chapter titles are song titles from the (super rad) [Cowboy Bebop soundtrack](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n2rVnRwW0h8&index=1&list=PL65E33789AA7052BC). Basically I took a lot of different plot points and ideas from Cowboy Bebop and mashed them all together with some elements from AFTG canon. Most of the settings are from Cowboy Bebop, I just expanded on them a little (except for the Berlin underground ones, that was my own imagination going a little wild).
> 
> You don't need to know Cowboy Bebop to understand this (I hope :') )!
> 
> A million thank yous to my beta readers whenworldsflyoffthepage and zombiesolace, your input was invaluable and I appreciate it so much!!
> 
> And last but not least, check out all the ridiculously gorgeous art from my artist, Levi (nefelibata on AO3/[Louviart on tumblr](http://louviart.tumblr.com/))! I've embedded it into the fic but there are two tumblr posts (character studies [here](http://louviart.tumblr.com/post/177707936423/aftgbigbang-post-%C2%BD-some-character-studies-in-the) and the rest [here](http://louviart.tumblr.com/post/177707982543/all-my-story-illustrations-for-the-aftgbigbang)), so don't forget to reblog/comment because this fic would not be the same without it! Levi, it was a joy to work with you, I had so much fun!!
> 
> Warnings: graphic violence (fight scenes mostly), mentions of past forced drugging/human experimentation/abuse in a medical facility, mentions of past sexual and physical abuse, panic attacks, claustrophobia, mentions of torture (not graphic), small side plot involving a religious cult and brainwashing people to commit suicide, organised crime, some talk about sex and the last chapter features a blowjob. Feel free to contact me if you need more info!

 

[ ](https://www.flickr.com/photos/143876612@N03/29507260847/in/album-72157695091145580/)

[](https://www.flickr.com/photos/143876612@N03/42636096220/in/album-72157695091145580/) [](https://www.flickr.com/photos/143876612@N03/44395656072/in/album-72157695091145580/)

“Andrew, Captain wants us in the lounge.”

Andrew drops his hand from his left eye and for a moment the night sky from seventy years ago realigns with the view from the _Bebop_ 's console room. He blinks. Counting stars has become a habit, something to subdue the memories. Kevin calls it a lesson in futility, Renee cracks a chicken bone smile in the corner of her mouth and joins him sometimes.

The crew is gathered around the flickering hologram screen that Kevin has pulled up, where the _Big Shot_ announcers are babbling away excitedly. Andrew sinks down into the depths of the old, faded orange monstrosity of a couch that sits pride of place in the middle of the lounge and kicks his feet up on the coffee table, ready to take a nap.

“What's this? Fresh meat?” Allison asks cheerily, draping herself over Kevin's shoulder just to be shrugged off. “Ooh, he's handsome. I call dibs.”

Andrew opens his good eye just in time for the bounty to flash under the grainy black and white picture. There’s a collective intake of breath – Andrew, who remembers every single bounty ever placed, can't remember it ever being this big.

“Three hundred million Woolongs?” Dan says disbelievingly. “That must be some kind of mistake.”

Matt whistles when the announcers rattle off a list of offences. The boy in the picture looks blank, nondescript save for his bright eyes, and barely old enough to drink let alone rack up such an impressive collection of charges. Then again, it might not be a current photo.

“Been busy, hasn't he?”

“Nathaniel Wesninski alias Neil Josten is a hacker, con artist, engineer and pilot,” Wymack says, pausing the broadcast. “ISSP records say Wesninski was born on Mars, father is Nathan Wesninski, also called the Butcher for questionable services rendered to the Red Dragon Syndicate. He reported his wife and son missing sixteen years ago, they were presumed dead, but recent evidence suggests they ran away with a sizeable chunk of the Wesninski fortune. Junior's bounty is generously sponsored by Ichirou Moriyama, they want him alive. Maybe Ichirou's interested in recruiting him for his particular skills, maybe he wants to kill him personally, we don't know.”

“I met him once,” Kevin mutters, frowning at the screen. “We were about ten years old. His father had business with the Master. I thought... I was sure he'd be dead by now. How did he manage to evade the Moriyamas, his father and the ISSP for this long?”

“There's not much information on that,” Dan says. “His mother was one of the most skilled hackers that ever worked for the Syndicate. We're not sure if he ditched her and she's still out there or if she was killed, but seeing as there's no bounty on her head, it's likely she's not in the picture anymore.”

“Are we really going to hand this guy over to the Moriyamas?” Matt asks dubiously. “I mean, there must be a reason why he ran away. And we don't like the Moriyamas.”

Andrew snorts. “Since when do we have a conscience? We are bounty hunters.”

“First we need to catch him,” Dan points out. “Then we'd be handing him over to the ISSP. What happens after that is none of our business so long as we get paid. We could really use the money, the _Bebop'_ s in need of some major repairs.”

“We haven't had any meat in months,” Seth complains. “I want some real beef for once. Let’s go get this kid, why’s that even up for debate?”

Andrew's stomach growls as if on cue. He, too, is tired of instant noodles and Matt's infamous bell peppers and beef with no beef.

“Any leads on Wesninski's current whereabouts, Renee?” Wymack asks, scratching at his unshaven jaw.

Renee pulls up a few more photographs of Neil Wesninski on the hologram screen. She deals them out like cards until they fan out in a neat timeline of faded hoodies and various iterations of the same polished smile, a mouth sharpened to cutting perfection. Most of them are from before he ran away, a small boy with a blank face dressed in the Syndicate's usual red and black colour scheme. In the more recent ones taken by security cameras his hair is cut and dyed differently in every picture. The eyes, in contrast, look consistently hunted.

“ISSP seem to think he's somewhere on Mars, but the place is teeming with Special Forces and Moriyama people,” Renee says.

“The ISSP are a bunch of corrupt, incompetent idiots,” Allison snorts. “Where is he really?”

“I checked a few likely places near where he was last spotted. Security footage caught someone who fits Wesninski's stats at Eden's Twilight casino, though he changed his hair and eye colour and is using a fake ID. He might be working there as a croupier. I think we should check it out,” Renee hums, pleased that Allison trusts her skills more than the ISSP.

“He's probably long gone,” Kevin grumbles.

“Tone down the optimism, Day,” Andrew drawls. “We might start overestimating our chances.”

“Let's put a team together,” Dan says, rubbing her hands together in anticipation of some action. Things have been quiet on the bounty front lately and none of them take well to being cooped up inside the ship for too long. “Who wants to go gambling?”

Kevin, Allison and Matt all put up their hands. Andrew waggles his fingers lazily in the air. Wymack, Renee and Abby usually stay behind, Dan prefers working out their strategies and directing them from the _Bebop,_ and they tend to send her or Wymack to deal with the authorities once they've caught their bounty. Seth grumbles unhappily, but his ship is still busted since his last run-in with a group of space pirates and not even Dan has been able to fix it.

“Good, that's settled then,” Dan says. “You guys get ready, we're taking course for Eden's casino. Renee, I want all the info you can dig up on the Wesninskis.”

 

[ ](https://www.flickr.com/photos/143876612@N03/44395655732/in/album-72157695091145580/)

*

It's been a while since Andrew last stopped by Eden's Twilight. Nothing has changed, of course; casinos, like bars, are timeless places. Allison has dressed up for the occasion in a red silk dress with a plunging neckline and an open back that draws stares as they step into the glass elevator. Andrew feels at ease in his trusty black suit, Kevin looks like he was born in his white tuxedo; Matt keeps fiddling uncomfortably with his cuffs.

“You're banned from playing, remember,” Kevin tells Allison for the third time. Allison huffs and flicks her bleached blond hair over her shoulder. Her former alias – Lady Luck, also known as Poker Alice – is still a legend among casino owners but, fortunately for them, legends don't tend to get recognised in human form.

“And you,” Kevin says, turning on Andrew. “There's a no smoking sign right there.”

“It’s in my blind spot,” Andrew deadpans, ignoring the sign and blowing smoke in Kevin's face. The elevator glides to a smooth stop and they get out, Dan's voice in their earpieces reminding them of the plan. Allison and Matt mingle with the crowd around the poker tables while Kevin tries his luck at one of the slot machines lined up along the wall. Andrew finds himself a drink and wanders around the waterfall fountain in the centre of the floor, surveying the people coming and going.

He catches sight of Roland at the bar, flirting with a pretty, dark-haired slip of a boy wearing the standard casino uniform. Roland sees him looking and arches a smooth eyebrow, glancing at the door to the back rooms behind the bar, but Andrew shakes his head imperceptibly. He's here on business tonight, not pleasure.

The pretty croupier moves back to one of the poker tables and starts dealing out cards to the players. Andrew can see his face now – he looks a bit older, a bit more polished, but it's unmistakably their target.

A quick look at the slot machines reassures him that Kevin is still safe and happily charming money out of them. He lights another cigarette and wanders over to the table where Neil Wesninski is subtly cleaning out two rich old geezers and a white woman more interested in flirting with him despite the fact that he could be her grandson. He flashes her a million Woolong smile that doesn't reach his eyes and deals out more cards.

Andrew plays a few rounds.

The other players leave the table one by one. Andrew amasses a sizeable pile of chips and Wesninski smiles and handles the cards like he's been doing it his whole life. His fingers are nimble and his voice a pleasant mix between midnight radio host and just-fucked boy toy.

Andrew is enjoying himself far too much. Time to wrap this up.

He loses the last round and Wesninski takes all of his chips back save for one. Andrew throws it up and catches it in his hand, tucking it into his pocket.

“Better luck next time,” Wesninski purrs, idly shuffling the cards. He turns his smile up a few notches and adds, coyly, “Don’t I get a tip?”

“I think not,” Andrew replies smoothly and takes a drag of his cigarette before blowing the smoke at Wesninski's face. “Considering you've been cheating all night.”

Some of the bystanders gasp and murmur, attracting Matt and Kevin’s attention. Andrew pulls the poker chip out of his pocket again, tosses it up in the air, then snatches it up and throws it at Wesninski. By the time Wesninski has reflexively ducked out of the way, Andrew has his gun aimed right between his eyes.

Wesninski laughs and throws his arms up. Eden's has a no weapons house rule, but it's a very, _very_ loose rule. Andrew almost thinks Wesninski is going to come quietly, except then he taps a poker chip previously hidden in his sleeve, lightning-quick. There’s muffled gunfire in the distance before an entire wall of glass shatters under the gentle ministrations of a small remote-controlled spacecraft. Andrew has to throw himself to the ground to avoid being skewered. People scream, and by the time Andrew looks back up, Wesninski has fled to his ship and is blasting his way free into the ether, leaving chaos behind.

Andrew vaults over the bar, bypassing a cursing Roland and making for the stairwell in the back. His monoracer is parked right outside the staff entrance, and he climbs into the cockpit and powers it up before he's even properly seated, not bothering to get involved in Dan and Kevin's shouting match over the comm. Allison reaches her own spacecraft just as he's taking off, pulling his gloves down with his teeth. Seth is shooting from a nearby rooftop. It provides enough of a distraction that Andrew can catch up with Wesninski before he speeds off toward the closest mountain range that divides the casino district from the surrounding desert.

“Fuck!” Allison yells over the comm. “He fried my systems!”

Andrew puts the _Monster_ through her paces, diving low beneath Wesninski's beat-up single pilot racer. They're spiralling away from the casino, where Wymack and Dan are powering up the _Bebop_ to follow them, but Wesninski's rabbit-like zigzag course is enough to shake off even the most talented pilots. Allison is trundling far behind, Seth is trapped on the roof, and Kevin and Matt are still lost in the teeming casino crowd.

Luckily Andrew and his _Monster_ have a lot of practice chasing after rabbits.

Wesninski makes another sharp turn and lets his spacecraft loop belly-up around Andrew's before coming up on his right side. For a few seconds, Andrew can see inside the cockpit. Wesninski is steering the racer with one hand and typing rapidly with the other, in the process of shrugging out of his tuxedo jacket. When he sees Andrew looking, he grins and speeds up.

The string of Allison's curses on Andrew's comm line dies off abruptly.

“Andrew Minyard,” says Wesninski’s smooth voice through the hacked comm, vowels rolling like a pair of dice. “Fastest pilot and most reckless brawler of the notorious _Bebop_ bounty hunters. I'm honoured.”

“Pleasure's all mine,” Andrew grunts, narrowly avoiding collision with a jutting rock. Wesninski laughs, and the sound burns through Andrew's insides like high quality whisky from Mars.

“I'm sure it is,” Wesninski says. “Roland's told me a lot of interesting things about you. Quite the talker, isn't he?”

Andrew grinds his teeth and doesn't dignify that with a reply.

“Let's not play games anymore. Tell Kevin Day I'll wreck his precious ship and strip it for parts if he comes after me again,” Wesninski says, his tone abruptly hard. The line goes dead seconds before Andrew's engine fails. He's close enough to the ground by now that it isn't the worst crash he's ever survived, but it still hurts like a motherfucker. His fingers come away bloody when he touches his head, ears ringing with static.

Waiting for the _Bebop_ to catch up, he starts counting stars.

 

[ ](https://www.flickr.com/photos/143876612@N03/42636096420/in/album-72157695091145580/)

*

Kevin blanches and goes for the vodka when Andrew relays Wesninski's message. Kevin values his ship, and his life, in that order. It's safe to assume that he's more worried about the direct threat to the _Striker_ 's integrity than the fact that Wesninski evidently knows who he is and that he's hiding with the _Bebop_ crew. Even so, the ghost of Riko Moriyama still breathes down his neck after all this time, despite the fact that he's dead.

Andrew knows, because he was directly responsible for that.

He props his foot up on an ice pack and takes the vodka bottle from Kevin. He doesn't like the sleepy, cottony feeling that painkillers give him, not after Easthaven, but his alcohol tolerance is higher than even Wymack's; all it does is warm him up and dull down the pain a bit.

“Maybe we should let someone else handle this one,” Kevin mutters, holding out his metal hand for the bottle. The transmitter plate that connects the prosthetic arm to his brainwaves is placed just under his left eye, conveniently obscuring the number tattooed there. Andrew clicks his tongue and holds the bottle out of his reach.

“Coward. Think of that three hundred million Woolong reward. You could have your arm regrown for that kind of money.”

Kevin frowns and bites at the cuticles on his right hand until Andrew slaps his fingers away.

“Look at me,” he says, tapping the side of Kevin's face and waiting for his eyes to catch on his. “I said I would protect you, did I not?”

Kevin swallows and Andrew pulls hard on a strand of his hair.

“Did I or did I not?”

“You did,” Kevin mutters.

“Do you trust me?” Andrew asks, pulling harder.

“Yes!” Kevin yelps, and Andrew lets go of his hair and hands back the vodka bottle.

“Then quit whining and come up with a new plan on how we can catch the little shit and turn him into gold.”

*

“Minyard and the _Monster_ , how lovely to see you again,” Neil greets him through the once more hijacked comm. They've been playing this game for weeks now, racing each other across the Milky Way like starved lovers. Even Allison is starting to run out of lewd jokes.

“Missed me?” Andrew smirks, slowly gaining on him through a maze of asteroids.

“Babe,” Neil croons. “What do you think I hacked those laser satellites for?”

“Vandalising the surface of my home planet with laser satellites just to write _Fuck you_ on it,” Andrew recaps. “How very romantic.”

“Woah, hang on a second... home planet? Are you sure we're talking about the same old busted planet Earth there? The one that's riddled with meteor craters and basically uninhabitable?”

“Long story,” Andrew says, clipped. Thinking about Earth makes his left eye itch. He swerves around another glittering clump of asteroids and Allison overtakes him on his right, launching a barrage of her special homemade explosives at Neil's monoracer to force him off-course. Matt swiftly closes in from the left, and Andrew has to admit that Neil's manoeuvre to avoid both of them and the cluster of asteroids ahead is impressive. Or really stupid. Or both.

“We could use a pilot like that,” Kevin grudgingly admits through the crew's private communication channel.

“Coming from you, Kev, that's like a declaration of love,” Allison coos.

“Most of all, we could use the bounty,” Dan reminds them all. “Get a move on, he's slipping away.”

Andrew speeds up, veering haphazardly around another asteroid, and manages to pull level with Neil's ship again. Neil shows off by leaning back in his seat and steering with his bony knees, easily avoiding the projectiles Andrew shoots at him while blowing kisses and racing ahead. Andrew refuses to be shaken off this time though.

“Wesninski,” he barks, “you're heading straight at an active minefield. Spare yourself the trouble and slow down.”

“Aw, you worried about me, honey? I'm touched. And it's Josten, by the way. You should get your facts straight for when you get married to me and take my name.”

Gritting his teeth, Andrew urges the _Monster_ on until they're neck to neck again, keeping a careful eye out for the first sign of the rigged asteroid belts. Neil swings his monoracer even closer to him until Andrew can almost smell the varnish peeling off the hull of his ship.

Neil grins, then sucks two fingers into his mouth, cheeks hollowing out and eyes fluttering closed.

In the split second it takes Andrew to recover from the shock Neil is gone again, darting in and out of the minefield as if it's part of his morning routine.

Of course, for someone like Josten it just might be.

“See you, space cowboy,” Neil cackles.

“Fuck,” Andrew hisses, yanking his ship around at the last second to avoid the mines. Matt and Allison flank him on the way back to the _Bebop_.

“I bet you'd like to do just that,” Allison leers idly over the comm. Andrew gives her the finger as he overtakes her, and Allison laughs in delight at having provoked a reaction.

*

Sundays on the _Bebop_ are never quiet.

Not that there is such a thing as Sunday when you’re floating in space and visiting different planets with different time zones on a weekly basis, but Dan was very adamant about drawing up a rough calendar for them so they could schedule things like cooking and cleaning and supply runs. Sunday game and movie nights have long since become a part of the routine.

For the others, anyway. Andrew is once again on the floor, feet propped up on the console, a cup of hot chocolate balanced on his stomach. He isn’t going out of his way to _avoid_ socialising – frankly, he doesn’t care enough to – but he’s not making any effort to join the others either.

His hand is covering his right eye today. He's watching Cass lean down to kiss his forehead, again and again, until he can almost smell her perfume. It's cosy for all of seven minutes, until Kevin barges into the room and towers over him.

“Time for team bonding,” he says imperiously. “You're not skipping out this time or Dan will cut your rations.”

Andrew sighs, long-suffering, and pulls himself to his feet, noisily slurping his hot chocolate before it can spill over. He follows Kevin to the lounge, where Dan and Renee are busy setting up Trivial Pursuit on the coffee table. It’s a crumbling relic of a board game that Matt found in what they lovingly call “the attic,” and Dan won't let them throw it out even though they all know most of the answers by now.

Kevin and Andrew take up the orange sofa. One by one the others join them, spreading out across a few threadbare cushions on the floor. Renee lights candles, also salvaged from the attic. Matt is humming and carefully shuffling the disintegrating cards when Kevin sits up and scowls at something on his cyber glasses.

“What is it?” Renee asks, one of her hands drifting to the knife strapped to her ankle. It's the last one she keeps on herself, the rest are safely lined up inside Andrew's armbands, a hidden rainbow of blades.

Well, the last one save for her katana, of course.

“Wesninski again?” Andrew asks, halfway between resigned and hopeful. He, too, fingers one of the knives in his armbands.

“Not quite,” Kevin says. “Remember Lola and Romero Malcolm?”

Everyone nods, faces grim. The Malcolm siblings, lovingly nicknamed Phobos and Deimos – fear and terror – on their home planet after Mars' two moons, have lately made a hobby of interpreting “bounty head” literally. They like to dump the severed heads of their victims on the ISSP's doorstep, snatching important bounties connected to the Syndicate right out from under the _Bebop_ ’s nose.

“They're kicking up a fuss on Ganymede right this moment,” Kevin informs them, eyes unfocused as he follows the feed on his cyber glasses.

“And apparently they work for the Butcher,” Renee adds, tapping away on a small screen of her own.

“Might be worth a shot to join the party if they're after Wesninski junior. His bounty's still up for grabs,” Seth concludes. “What are we waiting for?”

Within ten minutes the crew is dressed, armed and ready to go. Andrew shakes off the last dregs of Sunday sleepiness that cling to his lips like the skin on warm milk. Neil Wesninski might have become a game by now, but the Malcolms still mean business.

Andrew can do business.

*

His left eye is replaying the car crash and Tilda's death on endless loop. Andrew pushes the lid down with his thumb and ducks behind a warehouse, resting his gun on his shoulder, finger still on the trigger. He can hear the vitriol Neil is spewing at Lola even if he can't make out the exact words; it must be something personal between them. Andrew aims, but it's hard to get a clear shot at Lola with Neil so close to her. He should take it anyway – Neil may be wanted alive, but alive doesn't mean in mint condition. And yet.

Down on the ground Renee is giving Romero a run for his money. Dan, Allison and Seth are circling overhead while Kevin and Matt are attempting to sabotage the Malcolms' ship.

“It's no use,” Allison says grimly over the comm. “Wesninski's gonna be collateral whether we do something or not. Let's see how that fancy protective suit of Lola's holds up when things go boom.”

Andrew curses under his breath and signals for Renee to move out of range of Allison's explosives. Neil is still struggling like a wild cat, blades flashing lividly in the dust-choked sunlight. He and Lola are similarly matched, but Neil is injured, and she's driven him almost to the edge of the roof. Andrew has a second to imagine the softness of his unprotected skin, but Neil isn't interested in him today and the comm line stays dead, so there's no way to warn him.

“Detonation in three, two,” Allison says.

Andrew steps out from behind the warehouse and takes careful aim with one eye, hair prickling at the back of his neck.

“One.”

The bullet grazes Neil's leg just as he's teetering on the edge and he drops over the side of the building at the same moment as the rooftop beneath Lola's feet explodes. It collapses in slow motion and Lola goes down with it, Dan and Seth ready to swoop in as soon as the building stabilises. Andrew's already running, pulling his bandanna up to cover his mouth and nose against the falling dust.

The backside of the warehouse is littered with debris. Andrew spots a spray of red and leans his weight against a large piece of plaster, wedged into the ground roughly where Neil must have landed, but there's no sign of a body, just the tang of fresh blood in the air, swirling in the dust.

“Lola got away,” Dan informs them over the comm. “Turns out she had another ship stashed away in the warehouse.”

“On it,” Allison says, though she doesn't sound very confident that she can catch up.

“I got Romero,” Renee pants, her voice cool and slippery like broken tiles amid the crackle of static. “He was hit by falling debris. He's breathing, but only barely.”

“Let's get him to Abby,” Dan decides. “Maybe we can get some information out of him.”

“What about Wesninski?” Seth barks, ill-tempered. “We still need that bounty.”

“Gone,” Andrew says, wiping at the dirt in his left eye. He just about catches the familiar outline of Neil's monoracer taking off in the distance and slumps against the wall.

He doesn't tell the others to go after him.

*

Romero dies before Abby can work her magic on him.

Shame. Andrew was looking forward to his knives getting some exercise had Romero not been very forthcoming during questioning. He deals with his frustration by sparring with Renee instead. Wymack sends them all on missions chasing down petty, low-budget criminals through rain-slicked streets and seedy clubs so they can get some necessary repairs done and restock their supplies. They’re still stuck with Matt’s bell peppers with no beef and a week’s worth of shiitake mushrooms in different variations after Seth lets a minor bounty head go in exchange for a sack of not-actually-hallucinogenic mushrooms.

“At least it’s food, man,” Matt tries to console him, patting his back. Seth makes a retching noise at his bowl of mushroom fried rice and leaves the room.

Things are quiet on the Wesninski front, and there's no sign of Lola Malcolm either. Allison thinks that she might have sustained enough damage to be permanently out of the picture. Dan says that’s too much to hope for, but they can still enjoy the quiet before the next storm while Lola is recovering or busy elsewhere. Kevin still drinks himself into a stupor as he always does when a case comes up that is tied to his former life with the Syndicate. The crew keeps him company to make sure he doesn’t give himself alcohol poisoning, indulging in Matt's cooking and Wymack's last whisky rations to dull the frustration. Dan attempts to teach Allison and Renee a dance from her home planet, with mixed success, and even Seth is in a slightly better mood thanks to the whisky for once.

When everyone is thoroughly distracted by the surprise dessert that Renee conjured out of practically nothing, Matt pulls Andrew aside with a serious look.

“So, we need to hire another crew member,” he tells him quietly, with that grainy, tired smile of his. “I'm going to ask Dan to marry me. We won't leave any time soon, but we do want to settle down at some point. Have children, a house. Dan wants to build spaceships.”

“So? Take it up with the captain,” Andrew says, annoyed at being kept from a second helping of Renee’s sticky sesame buns.

“The thing is, we need an engineer,” Matt presses on. “You and Allison are decent mechanics, but Dan's doing most of the maintenance of the _Bebop_ and the monoracers _,_ and you could use another pilot as well with both of us gone. Renee won't stick around forever either, and Kevin's a better flier and strategist than programmer, so the ideal candidate would have skills in that department as well...”

“Your point, Boyd,” Andrew says impatiently. A strange, sheepish look of amusement passes over Matt's face.

“Well... I think we've already found our ideal candidate.”

It takes a moment for it to click that he means Neil.

“We are not a sanctuary for talented bounty heads,” Andrew snorts.

“We kind of are, though, aren’t we? Come on, Andrew, you have to admit he'd be perfect. It didn't stop you from taking in Kevin.”

“Kevin's bounty was considerably less than Wesninski's,” Andrew says, flicking his fingers dismissively. “And it was retracted.”

It was retracted because the Syndicate ostensibly lost interest after Andrew staged Kevin's supposed death together with Riko's actual death in a hyperspace gate explosion. Even the ISSP aren't in the habit of chasing down ghosts. Renee, too, changed her appearance and identity after Dan talked her into joining the _Bebop_ , and her skills are worth more to them than her bounty at this point. Seth, Matt and Allison all arrived at the Bebop on the run from some minor trouble or other, and Andrew technically still has a two hundred million Woolong debt with Easthaven that he has no intention of ever paying off, even if he had that kind of money.

Alright, so they are a bit of a sanctuary. Andrew blames their bleeding-heart captain.

“You like Neil, though,” Matt tries to argue, and holds up his hands defensively when Andrew shoots him a cold look. “I'm just saying, you flirt with him all the time. I thought if you could convince Kevin, he can talk Wymack into it...”

“No.”

“I'll trade you my dessert rations.”

Andrew looks back at the rapidly diminishing stack of sesame cakes and narrows his eyes. Rations have been tight lately, since their last big bounties were all snatched up by the Malcolms and they blew half their resources on the fruitless hunt after Neil Josten. Kevin usually forfeits his allotted sweets, but Andrew is low on both hot chocolate and cigarettes, and he doesn't do things for free.

He names his price and Matt's face lights up like a Christmas tree.

“Thanks, man,” he says, and Andrew swiftly sidesteps a friendly punch to his shoulder. “I knew I could count on you. Neil's gonna be a real asset to the crew, you know. _And_ he's a better pilot than you.”

“Will you look at that,” Andrew says, “my rates just went up.”

*

It takes another month for the right moment to arrive. Missions are slow and Neil's face keeps showing up on _Big Shot_ , though not for lack of people trying to hunt him down. Andrew throws knives at the wall of his room. Counts stars. Fiddles with his ship. Smokes the pack of cigarettes Matt scrounged up for him and vaguely wishes he could go and see Roland, get rid of an itch, but there's no way he's going back to Roland after Roland sold him out to Neil at the casino.

At last Neil shows up on their radar again, thanks to Renee's expert hacking skills. Andrew is the first one out, putting the small Asteroid racer that they “borrowed” from a remote little museum on one of Jupiter’s moons through its paces, a ship almost as antique as Andrew himself. Renee says it's their best shot at not being detected by Neil's systems.

“Okay, you're on your own now, Minyard,” Wymack says over the comm. “Stick to the plan and if he doesn't cooperate, sell him out to the nearest authorities and get the damn money.”

Andrew doesn't reply and shuts down all the systems that aren't strictly necessary for following Neil. In almost complete darkness he creeps closer to Neil's main ship, which has already swallowed his monoracer. It's an old cargo ship, bulky and patched in so many places it resembles a flying junkyard more than a spacecraft. A faded logo is painted on the side, now almost illegible. Nothing anyone would look at twice, which is probably exactly what Neil wants.

“Here we go, Renee,” Andrew mutters. “Let's see if your brief love affair with his security systems was a fruitful union.”

He launches Renee's custom-made virus and waits while the monoracer connects to Neil's ship. Seconds tick by, white-knuckled and grim, and then the airlock opens for him and Andrew slips through.

He tiptoes along dark corridors in soft, practically noiseless leather boots borrowed from Renee. The air is freezing and he pulls his bandanna up to cover his mouth and nose, keeping his other hand on his gun. There's a sudden sound of something being dropped onto a metal grate and he stops, listening intently.

“Fuck! Fucking dumpster fire of a useless fucking ship.”

By now Andrew would know Neil's distinctive voice anywhere, even if he didn’t have a perfect memory. He creeps closer and peers around a corner, catching a glimpse of an open panel in the wall, wires sticking out like bedhair, and several slumped figures on the ground. He hears a whirring, chirping noise that seems to come from one of the lumps on the floor, and then Neil answers.

“I know, I know, I'll fix it somehow... Guess we'll have to stop by Ganymede again for spare parts. Fuck, I could do with a cigarette.”

Neil is hunched over a toolbox, shivering violently in the cold. His right ankle is wrapped in a filthy bandage, his bare toes bruised and bloody, and he winces when he moves. He wears two ratty hoodies layered on top of each other and threadbare fingerless gloves that don't seem to do much against the cold. What Andrew mistook for an animal beside him turns out to be two small robots, one of which chirps sadly at the mess of wires in front of them. The other is patiently holding a wrench in what Andrew supposes counts as its jaw.

“Man, I need a new ship,” Neil grumbles and runs a hand through his grubby hair. “Preferably one with edible food and a hot tub.”

Andrew steps out of the shadows, gun raised.

“No promises about that hot tub,” he says, almost amused when Neil jumps about a mile. “But there is usually food on the _Bebop_. And I have cigarettes.”

“What the hell! Security breach,” Neil snaps and slams his hand against the wall with a frustrated noise, scrambling to his feet and wincing when he puts too much weight on his injured ankle. “Why does nothing fucking work on this piece of crap?”

“I took the liberty of inviting myself in. Sorry about that,” Andrew smirks.

“Okay,” Neil sighs. His right leg is trembling visibly. “Okay, you got me. Very funny. Well done. Now what, you want a cookie? Go ahead, hand me in. I'll just break out again anyway. We can split the bounty, I'll even give you sixty percent because you're cute. Alright?”

Neil looks at him, standing there in his oil-stained jeans and one sad-looking sock, barely able to support his own weight, yet he’s still inexplicably trying to shield his robots from Andrew's gun. He slumps against the wall when Andrew doesn't react and makes a low sound.

“Worth a try.”

Andrew lowers the gun.

“I am not going to hand you over,” he says. “For now. I'm here to offer you a deal.”

Neil barks out a painfully dry laugh.

“You're out of your mind.”

Andrew shrugs, not even trying to argue that. His left eye is entertaining itself with memories of juvie today.

“We have a position to fill,” Andrew says blandly. “You fit the criteria. If you agree to work for us, we won't hand you in. You will be a part of the crew, meaning room and board, plus a cut of any money we make minus expenses.”

“You want to _hire_ me?” Neil scoffs, eyes like the gleaming insides of a wire in the dark. His hair is light brown at the moment, but Andrew can see auburn roots starting to show. He looks pale and there are dark smudges under his eyes, and the one sock he's wearing has holes.

Andrew makes a show of looking around.

“You need a new ship, do you not?”

“I can fix this one,” Neil insists. Andrew just raises an eyebrow at him and Neil glares and chews on his chapped bottom lip. “You're willing to pass on the gigantic bounty on my head just because you need a, what, hacker? Engineer? Pilot? Am I supposed to believe that?”

“Yes.”

“Find someone else, then. I don't know if you noticed, but half the solar system is on the lookout for me.”

“I can protect you,” Andrew says. “It's that or take the Moriyamas' no doubt generous offer of working off your debt to the Syndicate for the rest of your life, however long that may be.”

Neil stares at him. There's silence as he digests this – unusual for Neil – and Andrew shifts his weight on his legs. The cold is starting to get to him.

“My father will kill me,” Neil says slowly.

“Not if you accept,” Andrew shrugs. Neil makes a quiet sound that is more desperation than laughter and one of his robots chirps at him and bumps its head against Neil's knee as if to push him forward. Now that Andrew takes a closer look at them, they seem to have been built in a vague approximation of cats.

“Traitor,” Neil scoffs at it, a soft look on his face. “I know he's very pretty, but that doesn't mean it's a good decision.”

The robot manages to look dejected.

“That your crew?” Andrew mocks.

“Yes,” Neil says seriously. “Sir and King are better company than most people. And, well, apparently you managed to charm my security system into disobedience.”

“That would have been Renee,” Andrew says. Neil shrugs and absently pets one of the robots. It arches its neck into Neil's hand like it can actually feel the caress.

“Can I take them with me?”

“One thing we have plenty of is space,” Andrew muses. Neil visibly sags in relief, then seems to rally and nods.

“King, initiate protocol 3-10-28,” he says, and the little cat bot slinks off down the corridor and out of sight. “I'll need to pick up some things, too.”

Andrew follows him as he limps to his quarters and waits while Neil throws his few belongings into a scuffed duffel bag, not even bothering to fold his clothes. He picks up a pair of virtual reality goggles and a carry-on desktop computer that has been Frankensteined together out of different scavenged parts. Then he zips the bag closed and tucks his toolbox under his arm before leading Andrew to the monoracers, where the two cat bots are already waiting.

“Connect to my comm system,” Andrew tells him. Neil rolls his eyes and carefully stows the robots in the back of his racer. He gets in himself, somewhat laboriously, and leans down over the side.

“You really are out of your mind, Minyard,” he purrs. Somehow _Minyard_ sounds like _sweetheart_ in his mouth.

“Don't run, little rabbit,” Andrew warns him. “We have a deal now.”

Neil salutes him with his middle finger and buckles up.

*

Andrew watches as Neil's now deserted transporter takes course toward the nearest space junkyard. Neil is flying loops around Andrew's old monoracer, babbling over the comm, and Andrew leads him toward the _Bebop_ , feeling like his stomach is lit up with fireflies. He switches to a private channel with Renee as soon as they're within reach, tuning out Neil's excited musings on the type of explosive Allison is going to greet him with this time.

“Still think this is a good idea?”

Renee laughs softly, a sound like windchimes in the dark.

“Why Andrew, are you getting cold feet?” she teases.

“I don't trust him,” Andrew says.

“Well now, that's just mean,” Neil butts in. “I haven't even hacked any of your private comms yet.”

“Except for this one,” Renee comments dryly.

“Except for this one,” Neil confirms. “Accident, I swear. Here, I'll leave you two lovebirds alone again.”

There's crackling silence while the _Bebop_ appears in Andrew's line of sight.

“Neil,” Andrew says.

“Yes?”

“You're still listening.”

“Hmm,” Neil hums. “Pretty _and_ smart. You're killing me, space cowboy.”

And then they're home.

*

“...and this is your room,” Matt finishes his tour, stepping aside to let Neil enter. He's still eyeing his crutches with distaste, but Abby was very adamant about those, and she can be scarily convincing when she wants to be. Andrew leans against the doorframe and watches him hobble past.

“It's so... neat and tidy,” Neil says, squinting at his new quarters. He's hunched over his crutches like a wary animal and his two cat bots are pressed close to his legs, nearly tripping him up several times. “I hope there's no rule about it staying that way.”

“No, we dropped that one after Seth,” Dan says sourly.

“Come on, most of us are pretty clean,” Matt laughs.

“Remember that time we had a mutant lobster loose on the ship because _someone_ hid it in the fridge in the attic and forgot about it?” Dan seethes.

“Aw, it tasted fine once Andrew caught it and grilled it. It was a good lesson on the difference between venomous and poisonous.”

“Yes, _after_ it bit three of us! We were on lockdown for a week trying to track the damn thing down!”

Andrew tunes out of the conversation and goes back to watching Neil as he sits down on the bed, freshly made by Abby with clean sheets and military precision. It barely dips under his weight. He picks up the picture frame that Matt put on the bedside table; a photograph of the _Bebop_ crew in the Venusian desert, all sunlit eyes and gleaming teeth, Renee's hair still bubblegum purple and Andrew in the process of walking out of the picture for a smoke, his nose painfully pink. Spores from the local floating trees are twirling around them like snow.

“Cute,” Neil grins.

“Dan, babe, give him the co-captain talk,” Matt says, beaming.

“Neil, this is your family now,” Dan sighs, “like it or not. We have pizza nights every other week, Karaoke Thursdays once a month, and team bonding every Sunday night. And yes, your attendance is mandatory.”

Neil snorts, but he's still staring at the photograph.

“Wait until he hears about Strip Poker Monday,” Andrew stage-whispers.

“There is no Strip Poker Monday,” Dan deadpans.

“Are you sure about that?” Andrew smirks. “Allison begs to differ.”

Dan ignores him and tells Neil all about the cooking and cleaning rotas and how they divide up the work and handle the finances. Andrew wanders off, bored, and does some chin-ups on an exposed grate in the ceiling. He hears the clumsy sounds of Neil approaching on his crutches but doesn't stop until he's almost in front of him.

“Can I ask you a question?”

“You are clearly in possession of all the necessary equipment and ability to do so,” Andrew drawls, dropping down and wiping his hands on his trousers.

“You said you were from Earth,” Neil says, looking serious for once. “Was that true? I mean, it's a wasteland. The population's, like, minuscule.”

“I thought Roland told you all about me,” Andrew mocks. Now that he's not hanging from the grate anymore they are standing awfully close.

“Obviously not,” Neil admits, with a quirk to his lips. “The kind of information Roland deals in is… of a rather different nature.”

Andrew snorts. Yeah, he’s definitely not going to see Roland again.

“So?” Neil prompts.

“I was cryogenically frozen after a car accident in 2020. It wasn't a wasteland then,” Andrew says, the words rolling around like mothballs in his mouth. They sound like someone else is saying them. One of his doctors, maybe.

Proust, maybe.

Suddenly angry, he pushes his left eye closed with two fingers. Sometimes the past still sneaks up on him, like a sudden noise in the moment just before falling asleep. Neil is watching him curiously, eyes supernova wide and fingers trailing like asteroids on the surface of the nearest porthole, connecting stars like dots.

“Wow,” he says quietly. “That sucks. What about your family?”

“That's two questions,” Andrew says, and walks away.

 

[ ](https://www.flickr.com/photos/143876612@N03/44395656802/in/album-72157695091145580/)

*

“So, when are we handing the brat over to ISSP and collecting our money?”

Seth looms over the breakfast table, arms crossed and face murderous. Allison looks up from her bowl of steaming eggs and noodles and points at the gun lying next to her on the table, which now has twelve types of ammo besides her standard explosives.

“How about never?”

Seth glowers. Ever since Neil's arrival on the _Bebop_ five days ago, all of their weapons and a good part of their electronic equipment have been miraculously repaired, improved and upgraded. Even the hologram screens, the fridge in the attic and the microwave are working properly again. Seth's monoracer has, notably, been neglected so far and is still refusing to leave the hangar. It might have something to do with the fact that Neil doesn't like him.

“He's a waste of space,” Seth grunts.

Matt takes another plate and piles it high with food before shoving it at Seth.

“Eat,” he grins. “You're an asshole when you're hungry, man.”

Seth snorts but takes the plate and starts eating. Andrew pops an oatmeal cup into the microwave and pulls himself up on the counter, surveying the kitchen. Renee is sipping steamed oolong tea and catching up on the news on her tablet, Dan is yawning into her coffee, Abby and Wymack are in the lounge poring over the _Bebop_ 's finances. Kevin won't be up for hours yet.

“Where is Neil?” Andrew asks, frowning at his lumpy oatmeal.

“In his workshop,” Matt says sadly. “I tried to coax him out for breakfast but he says he's working on something.”

“By which he means he prefers the company of his robots to ours,” Allison shrugs, noisily slurping noodles through puckered lips.

“Again, why the fuck aren't we selling him yet?” Seth grumbles, dropping his plate in the sink with a clatter. “We could be rich by now.”

“We are not selling Neil,” Dan yawns. “I thought we were done with that discussion.”

Andrew pokes at his oatmeal, then grabs a bowl, fills it with noodles and snatches the next cup of coffee out from under Seth's nose. Seth’s cursing and Renee's assessing gaze follow him out of the kitchen, Renee’s dark eyes softened in the steam of her tea.

*

“Come back here you miserable heap of trash metal!”

There's a squeal and a crash, and Andrew steps aside as one of Neil's robocats whizzes past him with a small screwdriver in its mouth. The robot skids to a halt and hides behind Andrew's legs, looking almost mischievous, in as much as robots _can_ look mischievous.

“I need that!” Neil shouts from behind a workbench. “You fucking... oh, hi.”

He scowls when he sees Sir crouching behind Andrew with the screwdriver. Andrew gives the robot a little nudge with his foot and follows it around the workbench where Neil is kneeling in front of a mess of exposed wires. He’s wearing loose denim overalls with the top part tied around his waist, a black t-shirt underneath and a dirty cloth wrapped around his neck. No socks again, and the bandages around his ankle are starting to unravel.

“Eat,” Andrew says, pushing the bowl at him. “Your bandages need changing.”

Neil sighs, reluctantly pulls himself up and slumps into a chair. He tucks into the noodles like a starving man and props his injured foot up on the workbench, wiggling his toes.

“Knock yourself out.”

“We have Abby for that,” Andrew points out. Neil just shrugs and keeps eating, so Andrew goes hunting for the first aid kit and surveys its contents. They restocked their supplies on the last pit stop, but some things are already missing and there are burns and scrapes on Neil's exposed arms from his work, angry red nebulas of skin and dried blood.

Neil is a bit like a stray cat, Andrew thinks while he patches him up. Dirty and ragged and barely able to look after himself, but somehow still alive and thriving.

“Renee says you don't sleep.”

Neil laughs, nearly spraying him with half-chewed bits of egg.

“Sweet Renee. Of course I sleep, I'm not an android. Thanks for the food.”

Andrew holds his foot firmly in place to finish wrapping the bandage. Neil is like a live fish under his hands, constantly wriggling and sliding out of his grip, fingers twitching back toward his abandoned project like flies caught in a spiderweb. His skin is impossibly soft, a pale contrast to the rough materials he works with all day, and Andrew can't resist running a finger through the sparse hair on his skinny calf before pulling down the cuffs of his pants. Neil shivers under the touch like he's not used to being touched at all.

“Do you not own shoes?” Andrew huffs. Neil rolls his eyes and drains the coffee Andrew brought, mouth wide and sloppy.

“Are you always such a mother hen?” he shoots back.

“Are you always such an idiot?”

“I make a special effort just for you.”

Neil grins, sweet and innocent, dimples in his cheeks and flecks of quartz in his tired eyes. His fingers, bored, are playing with the hem of his t-shirt, tugging it up to reveal a caramel drizzle of freckles on his right hipbone drifting over to his navel, and a messy conglomeration of scars.

He sees Andrew looking at them and prods the shirt back into place. The grin on his face has withered into the grey blankness that Andrew recognises from the photographs Renee dug up all those weeks ago, like Neil only just remembered that the scars are there.

“Did you need anything?” Neil asks, which should sound polite but doesn’t, and Andrew taps his fingers against the workbench twice and shrugs.

“You should join them for dinner,” he says. He can tell that the others are going to blame him personally if Neil continues to shut himself up in his workshop and avoid the inevitable team bonding that they’re all frothing at the mouth for. Never mind that it should be Matt’s responsibility, since he was the one who wanted Neil on the crew in the first place.

“Will you be there too?” Neil wants to know, fiddling with a piece of scrap metal.

“There is food,” Andrew shrugs. “So, yes, usually.”

Neil hums and goes back to the gutted carcass of machinery on the floor, nimble hands fidgeting themselves into a knot of busted wires, oil smudge high on his cheek. Andrew leaves him to it.

*

Neil still doesn’t eat his meals with the crew, but he does start to come out more once his ankle is healed. Andrew doesn’t see much of him except for when he’s up early – well, late – and gets to witness the spectacle that is Neil going for his daily run. He laps the bowels of the _Bebop_ in tight orange shorts, his hair tied back with a bandanna and music turned up so loud Andrew can hear the thumping beat through his earphones.

If Andrew were the early riser type, he would rise early just for this.

Insomnia fucks with his brain-to-mouth filter and makes his lashing-out reflex even quicker on the trigger, so he usually tries to stay out of the way when it hits, in the spirit of not killing his crewmates. The few times he ventures out in search of coffee and encounters the neon orange glare of Neil’s shorts in the dim corridors are worth the risk though, and Neil never tries to start a conversation anyway. Andrew retreats to the lounge, nursing his coffee, and counts the minutes until Neil’s meandering path leads him past the open doorway again.

He nods off, once, and wakes up to find himself covered in a blanket with Neil nowhere in sight.

Matt is the first to join Neil on his run. Neil still puts in his earphones and doesn’t respond to any attempts at small talk, but Matt takes it in stride and brings his own music. Dan gives it a go not long after but claims it’s too damn early for her, and soon enough there’s at least one crew member out every morning to keep Neil company. Renee prefers to stick to her own pace and smiles whenever she passes someone in the corridor. Kevin and Allison are both determined to keep up with Neil and end up regretting it every time. Seth, competitive asshole that he is, even gives himself a sprain that has to be treated by Abby. Andrew sticks to his sofa, smoking and drinking coffee, and simply enjoys the occasional flash of orange in the doorway.

“Hey,” Neil pants, coming up to the sofa still in his running clothes. His face is flushed and he’s dripping sweat – today’s run has been longer and faster than usual, like he’s been trying to outrun a few demons.

“Go shower,” Andrew tells him, poking his spoon around a bowl of cereal. “You reek.”

“Can’t,” Neil says, “Matt and Kevin are hogging the bathrooms again.”

“Ask Dan if you can use theirs.”

“Renee’s dyeing her hair.”

Andrew sighs and gives up on his soggy cereal. Neil’s thin shirt is clinging to him with sweat. It’s _distracting_.

“Why are you talking to me?” Andrew asks tetchily.

“Are you ever going to run with me?” Neil wants to know, tugging on his bandanna. Allison made a point of giving him a ten pack of the most lurid shades and patterns she could find, just to see if he would wear them. She and Renee collectively won that bet against Dan.

“Nope,” Andrew says, sucking his spoon into his mouth with an obnoxious slurp to make a point.

“Shame,” Neil grins. “I was looking forward to winning.”

“Who says you would win?”

Neil scoffs.

“You’ve been staring at my ass all week, cowboy. You should be so lucky to come in second, makes for a great view.”

Andrew hums and keeps his mouth firmly shut on the topic of _lucky_ and _coming_ , and Neil starts stretching. He bends over right in front of him, hands touching the ground and all, and Andrew bites down hard on his spoon and is suddenly glad for the blanket covering his lap.

*

It’s a slow Friday night and Andrew is in Neil’s workshop again, patching up his latest scrapes and burns. Music drizzles from an old radio in the corner, something brassy and upbeat with no lyrics, and Neil’s hands are re-enacting one of his more entertaining encounters with other bounty hunters before the _Bebop_ snatched him up, mouth going a mile a minute. He hisses when Andrew sprays disinfectant on a cut in his foot but doesn’t stop talking. Sir and King are camped out nearby, merrily emptying a drawer of tools, and Andrew lightly smacks Neil’s foot off the workbench when he’s done and goes to wash his hands at the sink.

“About that leather jacket you wore the other day,” Neil says abruptly.

Andrew raises an eyebrow.

“Are you going to wear it again?”

“Why?” Andrew asks. Neil shrugs.

“I like it. Makes your shoulders look all... shouldery.”

“Shouldery,” Andrew echoes, baffled.

“Yeah,” Neil grins. “Like, you know how when you normally look at a person you don't consciously notice their shoulders? But then you wore that jacket and I was like, damn. Those are some proper shoulders.”

Andrew is so busy staring at Neil and being bewildered at the nonsense that comes out of his mouth sometimes that he realises too late when one of the robots slips his cigarettes and lighter out of his pocket. It brings them over to Neil, tail held smugly aloft, and drops its loot in his lap with a chirp.

“Good girl,” Neil hums absently, scratching the robot's neck. He lights up one of Andrew's hard-won cigarettes and tosses the pack back to him, but he keeps the lighter, turning it over and letting it dance over his knuckles. His fingers are stained and calloused, the nails bitten down to stubs. Andrew has the illogical urge to take them in his mouth and taste them.

“I expect you to give that back on Sunday,” Andrew says, tucking his cigarettes away.

“Why? What's on Sunday?”

“Guess you will have to wait and see,” Andrew says.

*

On Sunday Andrew puts on his leather jacket. Because he's nothing if not contrary, he accessorises it with an old pair of fleece-lined leggings and the largest, most comfortable t-shirt he owns, so faded it's more grey than black at this point, and some slipper socks that go up almost all the way to his knees.

The outfit earns him a grin from Renee and a low whistle from Allison, both tucked up on the couch wearing face masks, pyjamas and matching towel turbans. Kevin fidgets with the projector while Matt flicks through their selection of old film reels, half of which are mysteriously about samurais. Wymack's nursing a whisky in his armchair, Abby and Dan are setting up snack trays, and Seth is snoring on the floor.

Neil is, notably, still missing.

“Think he'd wake up if we put a face mask on him?” Allison muses, poking Seth with her toe. Renee manages to look both innocent and devilish at the same time as Seth lets out a particularly loud snore. “Dan! Can you get us some more cucumber slices?”

Andrew swipes the bottle of whisky, grabs a bag of marshmallows and sinks down in a beanbag chair. Dan hands out snacks and turns off the lights, and Kevin starts the movie, pointedly clearing his throat when Matt keeps talking. Neil slinks into the room late, looking tousled and a little sticky around the edges like he's just woken up from a nap. He freezes when he sees Andrew, stuck standing right in the middle of the projection, and only moves when Dan throws a cushion at him.

He takes the last remaining beanbag next to Andrew's and wordlessly hands over his lighter.

For the rest of the night, he is unusually quiet. The only noise he makes is one of protest when Andrew tries to take off his jacket. His head droops slowly sideways until it's almost on Andrew's shoulder, and Andrew grabs a fistful of his soft, curly hair and pulls it all the way down. He smells like sleep and metal and gauze, though his fingers have picked off most of the bandages Andrew put on him again already. Somehow Andrew's hand remains in his hair, playing with the curls. He doesn't realise Neil's asleep until he himself is startled out of a pleasant doze by the lights turning back on and the sounds of the crew getting ready to call it a night, Seth cursing loudly about the dried mask on his face.

“Neil,” Andrew murmurs, pulling at his hair. “Wake up.”

Neil's eyes snap open and he sits bolt upright, looking slightly manic for a second before his gaze settles on Andrew's face.

“Right,” he says loosely, blinking several times.

He flinches when Matt pats his shoulder on his way past, yawning and wishing them a good night. Andrew feels disoriented and tries to ground himself by taking a slow look around the room to make sure he's really there, in the present instead of in a long-gone living room with unlucky foster family number seven. When he's done, everyone else is gone save for Neil, who is waiting at the door looking bleached and tired in the fluorescent light of the corridor behind him, fingers fretting at the hem of his shirt.

“Night, Andrew,” he says as Andrew catches his eye. It sounds almost like a question.

Andrew nods, jaw too tight for words, and Neil walks away with another filched cigarette between his fingers.


	2. Ask DNA

Andrew is bruised and sore at the end of the next hunt. Renee is nursing a black eye and a split lip and Andrew should probably make sure that none of his ribs are actually broken, but he so hates going to Abby. They drag themselves to Renee's room instead and patch themselves up in silence, passing disinfectant spray back and forth. When they’re done, Renee unearths a box of Venusian hot chocolate mix that she's kept hidden from him since their last trip to Venus.

The others are all busy. Dan and Allison are doing maintenance on some of the monoracers, Wymack is collecting a reward, Matt and Seth are out on a fuel run and Kevin is eyeballs-deep in code. Yet the kitchen isn't empty when he and Renee drag themselves in.

Neil frowns at them, a cup of Rocket Noodles in his hand and some tea brewing on the counter.

“I didn't think you'd be back already,” he says. “Something go wrong?”

His eyes trail to Andrew's taped fingers and bloody knuckles, then to Renee's black and blue face. Renee prepares their hot chocolate and adds a generous splash of bourbon to Andrew's mug.

“We handled it,” she says simply. Neil slurps the rest of his noodles into his mouth and drops the cup in the trash chute.

“So you do come out to eat sometimes,” Andrew remarks.

“Told you,” Neil grins, “not an android.”

He fiddles with another noodle cup and holds it out to Andrew. Salty steam rises from it and Andrew inhales deeply, only just noticing that he's hungry. It's chicken flavour – not real chicken, of course. At least he and Renee got some tamales on Tijuana before their intended bounty got himself blown up along with their two and a half million Woolong reward.

“I want to go on a mission,” Neil demands, not for the first time. “I'm running out of things to fix and my racer is going to start rusting if I don't take it out for a spin soon. Android or not, _I'm_ going to start rusting if I have to spend one more week cooped up on this ship.”

“Fine,” Andrew says.

Neil blinks.

“Fine? Just like that?”

Andrew flicks a small hologram screen at him. Neil opens it and looks at the specs of their next bounty, tapping his thumb against the frame.

“An eco-terrorist?”

“One of Renee's old buddies,” Andrew says, shooting Renee a look that only she would recognise as amusement. She doesn't take his bait and serenely sips her hot chocolate, the rainbow tips of her hair brushing her shoulders as she inclines her head. Neil watches her curiously and Andrew notices for the first time how long his eyelashes are.

“I used to work for this group,” Renee concedes after a while. “The Space Warriors. I didn't care if their methods were violent or unethical. The ends justified the means in my opinion. Then they started getting involved with drugs to finance themselves, and from there it wasn't long until they dabbled in human trafficking. That's when I decided to... leave.”

“Natalie Shields,” Neil says. “Also known as the Praying Mantis. That's you, isn't it?”

Renee's eyes flash briefly at the old nickname, then she delicately puts down her mug and nods.

“I see you've heard of me.”

“A little,” Neil admits. “Mom had me keep up with the news so we'd always know what was going on. There's still a sizeable bounty on your head.”

“So there is,” Renee smiles, a tired crinkle around her eyes. She looks stiff and faded like old newspaper in the light of the kitchen lamps, but her voice carries the same gentle strength as always. “I go by a different name these days. I'm not the same person I was.”

“Are you?” Neil asks simply, head tilted to the side like a different perspective will help him figure out the answer.

“In some ways,” Renee concedes.

Neil looks back at the hologram screen and slides it closed again.

“When are we leaving?”

*

Ganymede's fishing-based economy is on its last legs these days. The recession hit hard, more and more young people are moving away to more prosperous regions. The harbours and boats are slowly turning into ghost towns and falling into disrepair. The air smells briny and the water looks dull, half the bars they pass are boarded up. Neil somehow manages to blend in seamlessly with the tired, resigned looking residents of the small seaside town. He’s just another haggard face with unremarkable brown hair and eyes, but Andrew doesn't miss the way he keeps darting nervous glances around when no one is looking.

“In here,” Renee murmurs, indicating a small inn where several piers cross above brackish water. They enter the mostly empty downstairs bar and Andrew orders a whisky and some chips while Renee pretends to go to the bathroom to case the back of the building. Neil stays outside, ostensibly to smoke, in case their target makes a run for it.

The man is easy to spot as soon as he enters. The nickname “Gorilla” is a descriptor as much as a moniker – the three of them would just about reach his head if Renee sat on Andrew’s shoulders and lifted Neil up. Gorilla's long, hairy arms are corded with muscle and he cracks several walnuts in his bare hand as he waits for the bartender to pour his beer.

Andrew yawns and drains his whisky before approaching him.

“I'm looking for a man named Hawking,” he says, lighting a cigarette. Gorilla stiffens.

“So? What do you want with him?”

“Just a simple business transaction,” Andrew replies, casually pulling on his gloves before throwing a punch hard enough to break Gorilla's nose. He gets in a few more hits and Gorilla staggers, momentarily stunned, blood dripping down his face. “A transaction where I exchange him for the ten million bounty on his head.”

For his size, Gorilla is fast. Andrew is faster though, easily sidestepping a few feeble attempts at a counter-attack and reacting before Gorilla has finished pulling his gun out of its holster. Andrew ducks under his arm, grabs the man's hand and twists until it makes an unholy snapping sound. The gun drops uselessly to the ground. Gorilla howls in pain and Andrew kicks the gun under a table, then slams Gorilla's head into the bar and smashes his empty glass over his temple. He doesn't quite manage to avoid a flailing kick to his thigh and grunts at the impact.

Another lovely bruise to add to his collection.

The other patrons of the bar and the bartender have the sudden bright idea to stop gawking and leave the premises. Andrew pulls out two knives and Gorilla dives after his gun. Andrew throws one of the knives, lodging it deep into Gorilla's outstretched arm. Then Renee melts from the shadows and holds her katana to Gorilla's throat, effectively putting a stop to all attempts at getting away.

“Cops are on their way,” she says mildly. “I'd come quietly if I were you.”

Andrew picks up his cigarette and takes a drag before wandering over and plucking his knife out of Gorilla's arm, ignoring his scream and a string of curses. He wipes the blade on Gorilla's pants before glancing around.

“Where is Neil? He missed all the fun.”

“Taking out Hawking’s accomplice,” Renee says calmly. As if on cue, there's a muffled cry outside and several thumps, then silence.

“I see,” Andrew says, twitching aside the yellowed lace curtain on the window to glance outside. Police cars are already pulling up by the docks. Neil is on the pier, deftly zip-tying another man that resembles a great ape and who seems to be unconscious. When he sees Andrew watching, he tips him a salute and winks, then disappears soundlessly underneath the pier before the cops can get too close of a look at his face.

Andrew finishes his cigarette and pours himself another whisky from behind the bar.

*

“When was the last time you were on Earth?”

Andrew stops counting at four thousand three hundred ten and looks at Neil. He's upside-down on the sofa and his head feels sluggish and heavy, but Neil doesn't look any less pretty from this angle. In fact, he has a perfect view of Neil's legs in his orange running shorts.

“Sixty-six years ago,” Andrew says.

“You never went back? After they defrosted you?”

“No.”

“Why?” Neil asks, sitting on the sofa next to him. Andrew slowly reaches out, and when Neil doesn't retreat he presses his index finger to a constellation of freckles just under his knee.

“I killed my biological mother,” Andrew begins tonelessly, tracing patterns into Neil's skin. “My brother and cousin spent her life insurance money on having me admitted to Easthaven. It took fifty-four years until they could thaw me out and fix the damage inflicted by the accident.”

“Are they still alive? Your brother and cousin?”

“Yes.”

“But you don't think they'd want to see you?”

“The facility I was in was bought by the Syndicate after I was frozen,” Andrew pushes on, the words sluggish and slow. It feels colder in the room now and he eyes the blanket draped over the arm of the sofa but doesn't have the strength to reach out and pull it over himself. “When I woke up they told me I had debts. The doctors kept me in the lab for four years. They said I wasn't right and that they were developing a new medication that would help. I couldn’t pay my debts, so they used me as a lab rat instead. Wasn’t medication they tested on me, of course.”

His breathing is viscous now, like syrup in his lungs. His left eye aches and the corner of his mouth twitches painfully into the ghost of a manic grin. He bites his tongue and it tastes like the word _please._

“A new drug?” Neil guesses.

“New drugs, plural,” Andrew corrects. Neil lets out a long and controlled breath as he processes this.

“What about your eyes?” Neil asks. Andrew drags his gaze up to his face and Neil explains: “They're slightly different colours. And you hold your left one closed a lot.”

He touches two fingers to his own left eye in demonstration.

“It's cybernetic,” Andrew says, tired. “It only sees the past.”

He doesn’t even know why they did it – just one of their many, many pointless experiments. Maybe just for fun. Or, as Proust would have said – for _science_ , Mr Minyard. For science.

“That must be exhausting,” Neil says.

“Yes.”

Neil is quiet for a moment, then asks: “Do they know you woke up? Your brother and cousin?”

After he finally had enough strength and wits to get out of Easthaven, high as a kite but determined to rid his system of the drugs even if it killed him, one of the first things Andrew did was break into a police station and look up any records he could find of Aaron and Nicky.

He burned the files, but his left eye can still recite them perfectly.

“They lived happy lives,” he croaks, shivering and gritting his teeth against it. “Got married. Had children. Grandchildren, even.”

_Forgot about me_ , he doesn't say.

“Andrew,” Neil murmurs, sounding hoarse.

Aaron is eighty-two years old. His wife's name is Katelyn. He has two daughters. Twins.

He named one of them Andrea, after his practically-dead brother. How fucking sweet.

Something soft lands on him and jars him momentarily out of the endless loop of facts still burning under his left eyelid. Andrew blinks at the blanket now covering him. Neil keeps his hands tucked between his knees, but his gaze is on Andrew, hotter and heavier than the blanket. It feels like something tangible, like a hand caressing Andrew's face, and he shudders.

“Stop looking at me like that.”

“Someone has to,” Neil says.

Andrew doesn't argue.

*

Sometimes Andrew goes to Tijuana to watch the horse races.

He doesn’t bet, he just gets lost in the crowd and makes a game out of guessing the outcome of the races without any stakes involved, sipping on a drink. Maybe, occasionally, he’ll pick up a good-looking guy and blow him in the restrooms.

Today he doesn’t feel like unlocking his jaw for a pretty cock. His skin is crawling with sweat in the heat and his hands are shaking imperceptibly around his whisky glass, making the ice cubes twitter like excited birds. It’s one of those days. There’s nothing to be done about it except wait it out.

The downside to the horse races is that Allison has a certain weakness for them, so there’s always a certain risk of running into her there. Andrew usually tries to slip away unnoticed when he does, but sometimes she spots him first. He twitches when he hears the rich, boozy timbre of her laughter near the bar and quickly downs his drink. She’s upon him before he can make an exit. Trailing her is Neil, dressed up in a dark, tailored suit and blackberry purple shirt, hands in his pockets and a cowboy hat pushed jauntily to the back of his neck.

“Who have you put your money on, then?” Allison wants to know. She’s been blathering on about the races for a while now, but Neil’s unexpected appearance threw Andrew off too much to pay attention to her.

“Did you dress yourself this morning or did she do it for you?” Andrew asks Neil, ignoring Allison’s question and gesturing loosely at Neil’s outfit. Neil looks almost bashful and tugs at his shirt.

“A bit of both,” he admits. “Allison had the suit made for me. Do you like it?”

“Of course he likes it,” Allison snorts. “Didn’t you see his face?”

Neil’s mouth quirks, and Andrew signals the bartender to bring him another whisky. As much as he would like to sneak away to the restrooms with Neil in that suit, he knows today is not a good day for it. Bee’s voice in his mind is telling him to give himself time and space, to respect his own boundaries and the way he’s wired. Another part of his brain, sullen and bitter, grumbles that he’s not a machine and can’t be _fixed_ the way Bee fixes her ships and cars and radios.

“What do you want to drink, foxlet?” Allison asks, one arm hooked around Neil’s shoulders, fingers playing with his hair. It’s freshly dyed – dark brown fading to a light hazelly shade at the tips like it’s sun-bleached; Renee’s handiwork, probably.

“Something cold and non-alcoholic,” Neil says. “Do they have ginger beer?”

Allison orders the ginger beer for him and a sharp, citrusy cocktail for herself called _Sun Of A Gun_. Neil subtly shakes off her arm and steps a little closer to Andrew, fiddling with the straps on his ridiculous hat.

“Where did that come from?” Andrew points at the monstrosity.

“I won it from a vendor,” Neil says smugly. “He was bragging that no one had ever stolen from him without him noticing, so I bet him I could do it.”

“What did you steal?”

“Three pocket watches, two pairs of gloves, some saddle polish, and a couple of horse teeth. They sell them as souvenirs. Gave it all back, of course, but he let me keep the hat. Oh, well, and I hung on to these.”

He slips a pair of handsome fingerless leather gloves out of his pocket and throws them at Andrew. They are similar to his flying gloves but in much better shape, the leather smooth and soft and dark chestnut brown.

Andrew raises his eyebrow at him and Neil winks and tugs the stupid hat back on his head.

“ _If_ you two are done flirting, the next race is just about to start,” Allison drawls, drinks in her hands. Andrew puts the gloves away and follows them out of the bar and back to the packed stands. People are pressing in on all sides, a great swelling, swaying mass. Andrew ends up squashed between Neil and a pillar, the air heady with the scent of sweaty, perfumed bodies all around, yet he can easily pick out the metallic tang of Neil’s skin from the rest.

Allison whoops when her favourite horse comes in first. Everything is loud and dissonant in Andrew’s ears. It finally gets too much to bear and he pushes his way back through the crowd, not caring if he steps on a foot or two or if his elbow lands in someone’s face in the process. He reaches a somewhat emptier corridor, air conditioning whirring overhead though it’s still sickly warm. Walking feels better than standing still, so he heads off in a random direction, people scrambling out of his way. His breathing is shallow and black spots are swimming in his vision. He doesn’t notice where he’s going. When someone grabs him by the shoulder he reacts on instinct, snapping around and yanking their arm back until they scream before shoving them away from him.

There’s a splash and Andrew comes to, surrounded by security guards with their guns out. Neil is fishing Allison out of a nearby fountain. She’s clutching her arm, but she looks more angry than in pain.

“Sir,” says one of the guards, “we’re going to ask you one last time. This is a private area. Do you, or do you not have a VIP pass?”

“ _I_ have one,” Allison sniffs, waving a plastic card at them. “Now, if you’ll excuse us, we’ll be leaving.”

“That’s probably for the better,” the guard says. He hustles them through a door and down another corridor. Then they’re out in the parking lot, the smell of ozone and baking pavement thick and hot in the air, the sun unrelenting.

“Andrew?” Neil asks.

“For fuck’s sake,” Allison grumbles, kneading her arm. “I was trying to stop you from getting shot, you oversensitive man baby. Next time maybe don’t dislocate my shoulder. Asshole.”

Andrew looks down at his trembling hands. Something spiky and burning hot is trying to climb up his throat. He decides to let it, just this once.

“I was raped,” he says blandly, “as a child. And again in Easthaven. They tied me down and fed me drugs until I was too out of it to even hold my piss, let alone defend myself. _Next time_ , if you have to touch me, don’t do it from behind.”

Allison and Neil are both quiet, the only sounds the distant roar from the race track, the calls of the cicadas and the slow dripping of Allison’s soaked dress. Allison’s mouth hangs a little bit open, but to her credit there’s no other change to her expression.

“Why are you telling me this?” she asks warily.

Andrew frowns at the cars and ships parked in the sun and tries to manoeuvre the prickly thing in his mouth so he can speak without ripping open his own flesh.

“Because,” he says slowly, reluctantly, unwilling to even give up this much, but he’s _trying_ , dammit, Bee, he’s trying – “I did not mean for you to get hurt.”

It’s not an apology, but something vaguely in that sense. Allison looks incredulous for a moment, then smooths out her face and gives a curt nod.

“Do the others know?”

Andrew gives her a blank stare and waits for her to work it out for herself. Renee knows the most out of all of them. Wymack probably has his theories. Kevin knows some things about Easthaven but not any of the rest. Now Allison and Neil know the bare bones of it, and Andrew doesn’t see any need to drag it out any further. He just wants to get in his ship and fly, leave the heat and the crowds behind, just him and his _Monster_ and the unwavering stars.

“You know,” Neil says at last, “this is probably the least put-together I’ve ever seen you, Allison.”

“Watch it, foxlet,” she snarls, then looks down at herself and presses her lips together in a half-smile.

“It suits you,” Neil teases, grinning. Allison clucks her tongue and marches off in the direction of her monoracer. Andrew wouldn’t be surprised if she had spare clothes stashed in there for emergencies.

“Hey,” Neil says. Andrew turns to look at him and finds him taking off his hat and holding it out to him. “Here. It works better with your outfit, anyway.”

Andrew doesn’t move when Neil takes a step closer and slips the hat on his head without touching him. Neil gives him a once-over and nods, satisfied, before walking over to his own ship. He looks back once and Andrew tips the hat at him with two fingers. Then he retreats to the shade to smoke one last cigarette before he leaves this place and the ugly things it has conjured up behind.

*

Andrew ends up going to Mars with Kevin and Matt to pick up supplies and track down a group of low-level criminals that have been robbing supermarkets and gas stations on the outskirts of Alba City. The bounty is nothing more than chump change, but Andrew’s trigger finger has been feeling itchy ever since the horse races. It feels good to get out and exorcise some of the violence that always simmers just beneath his skin.

Andrew’s stomach is filled with coffee and greasy bacon sandwiches. It’s a nice evening, balmy and mild, the sky a pastel gradient of soft purples and yellows. He’s smoking outside and watching the dusk unfurl like an exotic flower when there’s a crash inside the store.

The four robbers are barely worth the effort. Andrew doesn’t even take off his headphones as he takes out two of them at once. The shelves sustain a bit of damage, but between the three of them they have the group tied up and docile within minutes. The other shoppers have just started coming out of their hiding places when a door flies open and a white guy in a grubby beanie hat comes out, still in the process of doing up his fly. Matt and Kevin are too far away and Andrew isn’t bothered enough to rush, so beanie hat manages to grab an old lady and mouth off about blowing her brains out if they don’t put down their weapons.

“Shit, I thought you said there were only four,” Matt grumbles, lowering his gun on the floor. Kevin looks conflicted for a few moments but follows suit with a sour twist to his lips.

Andrew only slides off his headphones.

“Andrew,” Kevin hisses, gesturing at his gun.

Andrew sighs, grabs a packet of chocolate chips off a shelf and some cigarettes from the counter and stuffs them in his pocket while taking aim at beanie guy’s stupid beanie hat.

“Didn’t you hear what I said? I’m going to-”

“I don’t care,” Andrew says and shoots.

Beanie guy drops like a sack of potatoes and the old lady stumbles away with a cry. She sags against a shelf, clutching at her heart but otherwise unharmed. Kevin swears loudly and Matt jumps a row of freezers to check that beanie guy is really out for the count. He quickly relieves him of his weapon and offers a solid shoulder for the old lady to support herself on.

“Perp’s dead,” Matt calls over to them. “Andrew got him right between the eyes. Couldn’t you have gone for his knee or something? We might have been able to get more money for all five of them.”

“ISSP never negotiate set bounties,” Andrew retorts. “He was worth nothing to us.”

“Fucking hell, Andrew, he could have killed her! Don’t you ever think?” Kevin snaps.

“I try not to,” Andrew says idly, and chooses a bag of rainbow-coloured sour candy to bring back for Renee. He swipes his cash card through the self check-out counter for that one, because he knows Renee won’t like a stolen gift, and goes outside to smoke another cigarette before it’s dark.

*

Matt throws his arm around Neil and shields his eyes against the Venusian sun.

“That went unexpectedly well,” he says, watching as the ISSP bundle the three terrorists they caught on the flight over into cars. Dan completes the transaction of their bounty on one of the ATMs lined up in the airport and Neil subtly slips out of Matt's embrace on the pretence of checking Andrew's hand. It's barely bleeding anymore.

“Well, I suggest we get something to eat first. We still have those mobsters to find,” Dan says as they leave the airport. The air is hot and dry, the streets busy. Matt stretches his long limbs. Andrew's left eye itches under his sunglasses and he resists the urge to rub it raw.

“Let's split up,” Neil suggests. His newly bleached hair pokes out from under his hood, though his eyes are hidden behind the VR goggles that he carries around everywhere. How he can stand to wear the hoodie in this heat is beyond Andrew, who is sweating in a loose black tank top, flip flops and Renee's thinnest harem pants.

“Dibs!” Matt calls, latching onto Neil's sleeve. Neil opens his mouth and glances over to Andrew, but before he can say something, Andrew shrugs and lights up a cigarette.

“Well, alright,” Dan says, looking less than thrilled at the prospect of being paired up with Andrew but keeping her tone light. “Meet you at the South mosque at sunset?”

Andrew doesn't stick around and wanders off. He's hungry and hungover and the piercing light is giving him a headache. There are four mobsters and a valuable stolen plant somewhere in this city that are waiting to be brought in and exchanged for money. Dan calls after him – something about not going off on his own, like she's never met him before – but gives up after he turns a corner.

He orders a prairie oyster at the nearest bar and cracks the egg into the glass with a sigh. The ceiling fan rotates slowly, somewhere a muezzin is chanting prayers. The air inside the bar is stained yellow with nicotine.

_Big Shot_ is on in the background. They're still flashing the pictures of the mobsters. Andrew doesn't need to see them to remember them perfectly, so he focuses on swigging down his hangover cure, orders a whisky to get rid of the awful taste and eyes the bowl of stale peanuts on a nearby table. He doesn't look up when the bell over the door jingles and someone enters the otherwise empty bar.

“Hey,” Neil says, sliding onto the stool next to him. “I told Matt and Dan I'd make sure you don't get yourself killed, wandering around all by yourself in a strange city.”

He grins, straight teeth blinding white in the stale light of the bar.

“I don't need a babysitter,” Andrew says.

“Well, maybe I do,” Neil shrugs. “You said you'd protect me, remember?”

Andrew throws back his whisky and gets up.

“Food first,” he says, leaving some bills on the bar, and Neil follows him outside into the bustle of the city.

They head for the bazaar. It's marginally cooler in the shade of the stalls and the air smells like fresh mint, spices and sweet shisha smoke. Street cats flit in and out of the crowd, stealing fish and batting at the tassels on carpets and prayer mats until the stall owners half-heartedly chase them away again. A dirty-looking white cat is fast asleep on a tarpaulin tied between two stalls, making the canvas dip low but remaining just out of reach of the humans.

Some of the cats flock to Neil like begging children. Andrew reminds him that they probably have all kinds of diseases and pointedly ignores the few stragglers that follow him around. Music billows over everything and the smell of fried food makes Andrew’s mouth water. He buys burek filled with minced lamb and pomegranate juice and two cans of chilled, frothy Ayran to wash it down. The salty yogurt drink soothes his raw throat and he feels better once his stomach is full.

“It's so good to be out again,” Neil sighs, slurping his drink through a straw. “I hate being cooped up inside.”

“Says the computer nerd,” Andrew mutters. Neil smirks and taps his cyber glasses.

“My nerd senses are telling me there's a tea shop down that way where we might get some information on our bounty heads.”

The clamour of the market fades the minute they turn down an unevenly cobbled alley. It slants downward and gets narrower the further they go, but there's shade and a cool breeze and Neil's shoulder brushes against Andrew's as they walk.

“Here,” Neil murmurs, stopping outside a small doorway with no sign. They duck inside through dusty beaded curtains and an old, faded bell chimes somewhere deep inside the shop. A single table is squeezed into an alcove between shelves piled high with tea, spices, knick-knacks and household items. Nazar amulets of every shape and size drip down from the ceiling, a thousand electric blue eyes watching their every move.

A wizened old woman with leathery skin shuffles out with a tea tray. Two small, hourglass-shaped cups with gold details are placed before them, belching smoke; matching tiny golden teaspoons are tucked against their sides. The tea is piping hot and strong and very sweet. Andrew feels more awake after drinking it than he felt after the whisky and tries to figure out which of the many unlabelled bags and boxes on the shelves contain this particular blend.

Neil talks to the woman in a language Andrew doesn't understand. She calls him words that sound like endearments and brings a plate of candied fruit, sticky marzipan-stuffed dates, white nougat and honeyed pistachio pastries. Andrew eats them almost entirely by himself while Neil and the woman haggle. In the end, she drapes two matching amulets over their necks and sends them on their way, and Andrew sees that the light outside has begun to dwindle and fray into darker, warmer colours. It must be later than he thought.

“There's a deal going down at the old mosque tonight,” Neil murmurs, close enough that Andrew can smell the sweat and dust on him and the faint whiff of cumin lingering on both their clothes. “I don't know who their buyer is, but the Gray Ash they stole is worth a small fortune.”

Andrew relays this to Matt and Dan in case they need backup and they wander back through the market, stopping at a nearby park to check over their ammo before heading to the rendezvous place. The old mosque is on the outskirts of town, a crumbling relic that looks like a complicated mosaic, a picture only visible from above. The place is deserted, so Andrew and Neil tuck themselves away in an alcove with their guns out and wait.

Neil draws a game of noughts and crosses in the dust by their feet and plays against himself when Andrew doesn't join in.

Slowly the sky glazes over in dark blue. Andrew's fingers are itching for a cigarette. His left eye shows distant memories that Andrew should have been too young to remember – not that the early ones are any better than the rest.

Then, at last, there's the sound of footsteps coming up the ruined stairs. Neil tenses beside him and Andrew wonders once again at their easy proximity. He's spent all day within a foot of Neil and the absence of the usual creepy-crawly feeling of having his personal space invaded is somewhat alarming.

“We have the tree,” says a deep voice. Two white men in suits step out of the shadows, one of them carrying a glass case containing a sapling. Two others are waiting further back, and a veiled woman approaches from the other entrance, trailed by a man in a suit.

“Did you bring the money?” one of the mobsters asks, warily eyeing the woman's empty hands.

“No,” the woman says. The men look taken aback for all of a moment before pulling their guns.

“Then we have no deal,” the leader says. Before he can shoot, a knife hits him right in the chest and he collapses with a gurgle, dropping his gun. Next to Andrew, Neil gasps softly.

A second later the air explodes with gunfire. Andrew reflexively grabs onto Neil and pulls him deeper into the shadows. When the noise dies down, all four of their bounty heads are lying dead or dying on the ground in pools of their own blood, just the tree in its glass case is unharmed.

Neil is trembling under Andrew's hand and clutching at his nazar amulet.

He whispers one word – “ _Lola”_ – and Andrew’s hand flies to his gun. He is about to step out from their hiding spot to use the moment of surprise and take Lola out while her goon is busy with the tree, but Neil yanks him back so hard he leaves scratch marks on Andrew's arm.

“Hands up! Drop your weapons and put the case down!” someone yells, and Andrew looks up to see Dan pointing her gun at Lola. Matt is beside her, aiming for Lola's companion. Neil swears under his breath and Andrew shakes himself free of his vice-like grip.

“Ah, old friends,” Lola laughs, arms held up casually by her head. “Come to collect your bounty? I'm afraid you're a teensy bit late, as usual.”

“We can see that,” Matt growls. “The tree still needs to be handed over to the police.”

“Don't kid yourself, you won't see a penny for it. You'd do better to sell it,” Lola taunts.

“Like you were planning to?” Dan asks.

“None of your business, Hennessey. Maybe you should go back to your old job, it'd earn you more money. They might not take you back of course, but I hear there's establishments for all sorts of preferences. Some men like their women a bit more on the mature side, after all.”

Matt looks like he wants to drop his gun and punch her, but Dan just laughs.

“I'm not ashamed of my past. You'll have to try a little harder to faze me.”

“Is that so?” Lola hums, splaying out her hands and examining her blood red nails. “How about this, then? We know you have something that belongs to us. We're coming for him soon. Out of the goodness of his heart, and because we are very busy people, the Butcher will grant you two weeks to return him to us. If you don't, we will hunt your entire crew down and we will not stop until every last one of you has died a slow, painful, ugly death. You wouldn't be the first unlucky souls to give their lives for poor, dear Junior.”

“Never,” Matt is quick to say, spitting on the ground to show his disgust.

Lola lifts her hand to bat away the tattered remains of her veil.

“I think I’ll start with the rainbow-haired girl, then. I haven’t forgotten what she did to my brother. Or was it the rich slut who likes blowing things up? No matter, you’ll all get your turn. Two weeks, _Bebop_. Clock’s ticking.”

Not a single sound is coming from Neil. Andrew shifts and tries to aim around a broken pillar but Dan is in his way. Then something flashes in Lola’s hand and the ground explodes, and Andrew instinctively throws himself on top of Neil to shield him.

It's over as quickly as it started. Dust clogs his airways and obscures his vision, and his ears are ringing from the blast. Neil is coughing and hyperventilating at the same time, shaking apart underneath him, and all Andrew can do is hold him tight until the air clears.

Lola and her companion are gone. The glass case containing the Gray Ash lies shattered on the ground, the sapling reduced to a sickly, wilted stump.

Matt lies unmoving under a heap of debris and Dan is clawing at it with her bare hands, her breathing harsh in the sudden silence.

[ ](https://www.flickr.com/photos/143876612@N03/44395656872/in/album-72157695091145580/)

*

“I have to go.”

“No. I told you I would protect you.”

“You don't understand,” Neil says, hysteria creeping up his voice like poison ivy as he shoves another sweater in his duffel bag. It's one of Matt's – half the clothes he owns now were donations from the others, or somehow ended up in Neil's possession with no one remembering how it happened.

The sleeve of Andrew's leather jacket pokes out of the overcrowded duffel bag, too.

“Neil,” Andrew says. He puts enough of a commanding tone into his voice that Neil stops frantically packing for a moment and looks up.

“Stay.”

All at once, Neil's entire body sags. He crumples into a trembling heap on the floor in front of his bed, hands clutching at the straps of his bag, both of his cat bots pressing close with worry.

“They'll kill you,” he moans quietly. “They'll kill all of you.”

“They will do that whether we have you on board or not,” Andrew says. “You are not going back.”

He kneels in front of Neil and eases the bag out of his grip. Then he takes one of Neil's hands and guides it up to his neck, finding his own steady pulse with the tips of Neil's fingers.

“I’m not scared of them,” he murmurs.

“I am,” Neil whispers, staring at the point where his fingers are touching Andrew's neck.

“So stay,” is all Andrew says.

Neil draws in a thin breath and nods.

*

“I want you to teach me how to fight,” Neil says. He's perched on a chair by Matt's bed, like a bird ready to take flight at the smallest noise. It's late – Abby sent Dan away to get some sleep and the infirmary is dimly lit and empty, the starched white sheets on the cots glowing unnaturally bright.

“You already know how to fight.”

“Not like you and Renee,” Neil insists, shifting his weight on the balls of his feet. “I know thirty-seven different sure-fire ways of stabbing a guy to death and I'm a decent shot, but the way you just took Hawking down on Ganymede even though he was at least three times your size, that was amazing.”

Andrew, sitting on Abby's workbench and smoking under the fume hood, taps ash onto an empty Petri dish and tries to ignore the memories of Easthaven that his left eye is doing its best to layer on top of Abby's thoroughly uninteresting work space. All her medical equipment is carefully tidied away, the workbench, sinks and counters are gleaming as if new, the medicine cabinets are locked and her files are kept in her office. A fridge hums in the corner, containing meticulously labelled agar plates, blood and tissue samples, and boasting postcards and photos of the crew on the front. There's a small and unimposing microscope in the corner under a terrifically ugly tartan cover. Several first aid kits are lined up on a shelf within easy reach and a few glass terrariums hang from the ceiling showcasing a set of utterly boring plants.

It's as homely and non-threatening as it can be, but some part of Andrew's mind still thrashes like a smoke alarm at being back in a lab.

“It's called Jeet Kune Do. Look it up,” Andrew finally mutters around his cigarette, pressing his left eye shut with his thumb.

“I've heard of that,” Neil hums and cups his chin in his hand. “Can't you teach me, though? It's easier to learn from an actual person.”

“There's hologram demos for that,” Andrew grunts.

“What if I trade you something for it?”

Andrew pauses in his examination of a pipette tip before putting it back in the drawer where he found it. Then he walks over to the bed and leans his elbows on the back of Neil's chair.

“No smoking in here,” Neil grins, and plucks the almost-finished cigarette out of Andrew's mouth to extinguish it in a glass of water on Matt's bedside table.

“What would you trade for it?” Andrew wants to know.

Neil shrugs. “What do you want?”

Andrew thinks about it and points at the lollipops that Abby keeps in a jar on the highest shelf. The _Bebop_ crew are basically overgrown children and react very well to little sugary rewards for good behaviour.

“Get me one of those.”

“What?” Neil laughs. “You want a lollipop in exchange for teaching me martial arts?”

“One of the red ones,” Andrew instructs. The yellow ones are too sour and the green ones taste like vegetables, and the swirly blue ones are sugar-free. Andrew doesn't touch those on principle.

“Well, alright,” Neil says, hopping down from his perch. He drags the chair over to the shelves and balances a little step stool on top of it. Then he climbs up on the ensuing death contraption and just about manages to tip the jar over with his finger, spilling a rainbow of lollipops out onto himself and the floor.

“Oops.” He surveys the mess, quickly swipes a bunch of lollipops up in his hand and presents them to Andrew like a bouquet. “Pick your poison.”

Andrew chooses three of the red ones, a purple one and an orange one. Spoils of war and all that. He unwraps one and watches as Neil bends down to pick up the rest, his ass on display and looking good enough to eat in a pair of leggings pilfered from Allison. The sight makes the lollipop taste even sweeter on his tongue.

“So when's my first lesson?” Neil wants to know, unwrapping a yellow lollipop for himself.

“Tomorrow,” Andrew says, “three o'clock in the sparring room. Bring cool packs, you will need them.”

He catches a movement out of the corner of his right eye and turns. Matt is still lying in the same position as before, eyes closed and breathing regularly. Without hesitating, Andrew lets his fist land hard on Matt's shin and rolls his eyes when Matt immediately yelps.

“Shit,” he groans, “that really wasn't necessary, man. I swear I wasn't listening.”

“Oh, you're awake,” Neil says, clearly feigning surprise. The little shit must have known Matt was only pretending to be asleep. Andrew glares at him, already planning ways to make him feel sorry he ever asked for a lesson from him.

Maybe, if he's feeling very uncharitable by tomorrow, he'll ask Renee to join them.

“Your blatant flirting woke me up,” Matt grins weakly. “Can I have a lollipop too, Neil?”

*

Andrew pries the fish off the hook and makes quick work of gutting it before throwing it in the ice bucket with the rest. It's slow going but he has time and the weather is good, just hot enough to be comfortable but not so sweltering that it turns his brain to soup. He, Neil and Renee have been sparring most of the morning and his muscles feel pleasantly strung out, not unlike after a good fuck.

He holds the fishing rod between his knees and lights a cigarette, watching the smoke. Most of the others are out exploring the town they're anchored in; Renee is meditating and Matt is sitting in the shade of the _Bebop_ with his arm in a sling trying to teach the cat bots how to play fetch. Neil joins them after a while, sitting next to Andrew on the edge of the pier and dangling his bare feet into the cold water, holding his hand out for Andrew's cigarette.

“First week's almost up,” he says, nervously rolling the cigarette between his fingertips. “Still not changing your mind about handing me over to my dear father?”

“What is it exactly that they want with you?” Andrew asks.

Neil sighs and stares into the distance. His toes wiggle in the water, attracting a few curious little fish.

“My mom developed this computer programme when we were on the run. It can decrypt any security code, granting you access wherever you want to go. We used it a lot to get through hyperspace gates and such. The Syndicate caught up with us a couple of years ago. They killed her and took the programme, but you need a key to use it. I have the key, Ichirou wants it. Apart from that, we also stole a lot of money when we ran and took out a bunch of very high-ranked Syndicate members, which got my father into very hot water with the Moriyamas. Most of the money's long gone, but I expect he wants to squeeze every last remaining Woolong out of me and then dismember me very slowly to remind his people why you don't ever cross the Butcher.”

“I see,” Andrew says. Neil stares at him for a moment, like he can't believe he's real, then sags again and takes a poker chip out of his pocket.

“This is it. The key.”

He lets it dance over his knuckles and Andrew follows it with his eyes, mesmerised by the complicated movement. Then Neil catches it and holds it like he wants to skip it across the water, looking pensive.

“If your father wasn't in the picture,” Andrew muses, “could you trade the key for your freedom?”

“No,” Neil half-smiles, his cheek catching on a pretty dimple. “They'd take the key and kill me, or force me to work for them. But it doesn't matter as long as my father is out there, because he's never going to stop hunting me.”

“Then we take out the Butcher first and deal with the Moriyamas second,” Andrew concludes. It punches a gasp from Neil's lungs. His hand trembles so violently the poker chip falls out of his grip, but Andrew catches it before it can drop into the water and holds Neil's wide-open gaze.

“Incoming!” Matt calls over, and the moment is broken. A small motor boat is coming toward them, slicing neatly through the shimmering blue waves. A turtle carrying a package on its back is painted on the side of the boat, and a delivery man in a green uniform leans out once the boat tuckers to a stop just beyond the pier.

“Parcel for Andrew Joseph Minyard,” he says. “That'll be three thousand and forty-one Woolong. Please swipe your card here and sign there.”

*

“Aren't you going to open it?”

Andrew stares down at the rectangular package lying on the floor before him. He's been staring at it for the last half hour. His knees hurt from sitting cross-legged on the ground for so long, but he's forgotten how to move. The parcel is wrapped in thick paper and tape and has different stamps and codes stuck all over it, like it's been in circulation for a long time.

It doesn't look like it's from Easthaven, but there's no one else out there in the whole universe who'd be this invested in tracking him down. Roland knows that Andrew will contact him if he feels like hooking up, and Bee can get in touch whenever she wants to. The _Monster'_ s next overhaul is due soon, anyway.

“I'll do it, if you don't want to,” Neil says, kneeling in front of him with the package between them. Andrew digs his fingers into his armbands and manages a curt nod. It is what it is, the parcel exists, whether he opens it or not. Andrew doesn't believe in Schrödinger's cat. If the damn cat is dead, it's dead.

Neil tears at the packaging. There's no dead cat inside, just another rectangular box, this one black. Confused, Neil turns it over in his hands. It's an ancient video cassette, in surprisingly good condition. Andrew’s joints finally unlock and he reaches out to take it from Neil, staring at the yellowed label on the tape.

_For Andrew, happy 25 th birthday!!! From Nicky xxx._

“What is it?” Neil whispers.

“A video tape,” Andrew says. “From my cousin.”

He must have recorded and sent it before they dumped Andrew in a freezer, intending for it to get delivered to him on his twenty-fifth birthday. It’s the kind of thing Nicky loved – _write a letter to your future selves, come on, it'll be so much fun, we can take it to the post office together and have them send it in ten years_. Just one of his many games that Aaron and Andrew never played.

“Are you going to watch it?”

“I can't,” Andrew says, rubbing his thumbs over the surface of the cassette. “We need a Betamax recorder to watch it. They’re obsolete.”

_Like me_ , he doesn't say.

“Well, where can we get one? There must be some left. Mom and I used a lot of outdated technology on the run, there was always a wacky collector somewhere who'd be willing to sell us what we needed for the right amount of cash. I can find one for you, if you want.”

“I don't care,” Andrew says and gets up.

He takes the cassette with him.

*

Andrew isn't sure how Neil talked him into going back to Earth. If anyone pressed, all he would be able to say is, “He asked.” He asked, fresh out of the bath with his hair sticking up and steam curling off his warm pink skin, the condensation trail of a smile on his face. When Andrew wanted to know about his real eye colour in exchange, Neil took out his contact lenses and looked at him with those squeaky clean baby blues like he thought he could actually _trust_ him.

No one's ever trusted Andrew before. Kevin, yes – Kevin trusts him enough to hide behind him, but he wouldn't sleep in the same room as Andrew if he could help it.

Wymack barely glances up from his beloved Bonsai trees when they let him know they're going on a trip for a few days. He waves the pruning shears at them and mutters something about never being asked for permission anyway and not being appreciated enough on this goddamned ship. Andrew leaves the protection of the _Bebop_ in Renee's capable hands (and katana) and then packs a small bag and saddles up the _Monster_.

The Betamax recorder Neil unearthed (literally, un-Earthed) doesn't belong to a collector. It is stored in the bowels of an old anthropological museum in what once used to be Beijing. The city is in ruins and half submerged in water, small wooden piers connecting what’s left of the buildings. The weather report announces that the chance of rock showers in this district is at ten percent today, the transmission crackly and unstable. Andrew and Neil land on the roof of the crumbling skyscraper that houses the abandoned museum and smoke a quiet cigarette in the morning light, looking out over the remains of the city.

“Why do people still live here?” Neil wonders. “Why didn’t they just leave?”

“And go where?” Andrew asks back.

“I don’t know,” Neil says, “anywhere.”

He opens his mouth and lets the smoke curl out, tongue chasing after the last tendrils, licking the morning air. Watching Neil like this is better than the nicotine itself. In his distraction, Andrew’s cigarette silently burns down to the filter between his fingers.

“Shall we?” Neil says, flicking his spent cigarette over the edge of the roof. The wind tousles his curls and tugs at his hood. Something shifts in his expression when he catches Andrew’s eyes. He steps closer, close enough that all of Andrew’s personal space alarms should go off at once, but the only thing he can hear is the great rushing of the wind and his own heartbeat.

“Alright?” Neil murmurs.

Andrew kisses him.

It’s just a dry, wonky press of lips against lips and then it’s over, but Andrew still feels like his whole body is on pins and needles. He never meant to do it like this – he never meant to do it at all unless Neil asked for it. The fact that he just left the safe territory of leaving it up to a man who didn’t seem interested in making the first step thunders through him and makes his insides shake with terror.

“Andrew,” Neil says.

“Let’s go,” Andrew says quickly, turning on his heel. There’s a door that leads down from the roof. He manages to coax the rusted lock into compliance with some lockpicks, then pushes all his weight against the door until it yields with creaking protest. Neil follows him down the stairs, oddly quiet. Andrew smooths his thumb over his mouth until he can’t feel the ghost of Neil’s chapped lips on it anymore. When they reach the upper floor of the building, he picks a door at random.

“Creepy,” Neil remarks, looking around the deserted hallway. The windows are caked with dust, giving the interior of the building a gloomy, green-grey ambience. They find a sign that lists the electrical appliance section as being twenty-five floors down and jam open the doors on the elevator shaft. It doesn't work, of course, and the stairs are blocked with debris.

“Looks like we'll have to climb,” Neil says, already uncoiling the rope he brought and fastening it to the harness around his waist. “Here, I'll go first and you follow.”

Andrew stares at the slippery rope in his hands, then down into the endless abyss of the elevator shaft.

“Andrew?”

He touches two fingers to his pulse and finds it roaring away just underneath his skin like a panicked race horse. When he lifts his hands in front of his face they, too, are shaking.

“You're scared of heights,” Neil realises, quietly. “But you're such a good flyer. How can you be scared of heights, Andrew?”

“Fasten it,” Andrew tells him, because his hands are shaking too much to tie the right knot. Neil takes the rope and works it through Andrew's harness with nimble fingers, careful not to touch him, and doesn't ask if he's sure; just waits for his nod before he lowers himself down into the gaping elevator shaft.

They climb for what feels like hours, the beams of their headlamps feeble twitchery in the darkness. A sudden metallic groan is all the warning they get. Neil, quicker on the uptake, kicks off the wall and swings them both over to a maintenance ladder just before the elevator cabin comes crashing down with an ear-splitting screech of metal on metal, narrowly missing them as it hurtles past. It takes a long time for it to hit the bottom of the shaft.

“Fuck,” Neil pants weakly. “Fuck, that was close.”

“Keep climbing,” Andrew tells him through gritted teeth. His coveralls are soaked with cold sweat.

They leave the elevator shaft behind at last and have to wade through black, brackish, stinking water and work their way around rotting debris. A strange, luminous jellyfish follows Neil around the submerged hallways for a while until Andrew loses his nerve and shoots it, the sound echoing in the cavernous hallway. Passing through the exhibits is surreal, like a dream conjured up by Andrew's left eye. He half expects Drake's ghost to rise from the moulding recreation of a bedroom.

“I think we're here,” Neil whispers, squinting at a sign on the wall. The door is rusted shut, but Andrew manages to kick it open. Once inside they're surrounded by shelves and displays of old electronic appliances – toasters, mobile phones, electric toothbrushes, washing machines. Neil scans a display case of video recorders and breaks the glass before carefully extricating a Betamax recorder that looks as if it's in halfway decent shape. In any case, Neil or Dan should be able to salvage or recreate it.

The trek back is just as nerve-wracking and tedious as the way down.

Once he's back in the cockpit of the _Monster_ , Andrew curls in on himself and twists both hands in his hair, waiting for the shakes to subside. He's cold and wet and exhausted, it's been hours since he last ate something, and he's really craving a cup of Bee's special tea with brown sugar and rum. It takes him a long while to register that Neil is calling his name over the comm.

“What,” he croaks, sucking in air.

“Hi,” Neil says softly. “You don't look okay.”

“No,” Andrew confirms tiredly.

“Let's find a safe place to land and recharge a bit before we go back.”

“Yes,” Andrew says. Neil waits until he has himself under control enough to take off, and then they leave the city behind.

*

_“...I know you don't want to hear this stuff right now, but I think with time maybe you will need to hear it, so I'm gonna tell you like this and hope that by the time you see this tape you won't want to murder me, haha. Yeah, so, here goes. Andrew – I hope you know that I love you. I believe with all my heart that you have a bright future ahead of you, and honestly I can't wait to see you grow into it. Things aren't so easy at the moment, and maybe they still aren't easy for you watching this ten years from now, but I'll always be there for you, and for Aaron, too. I hope that one day we can be a family. Happy birthday, my little piyoko, don't eat all the cake by yourself!_ ”


	3. Gotta Knock A Little Harder

“Fuck, it's cold out here.”

Neil crouches down by the pitiful little fire Andrew has going and wraps his blanket tighter around himself. Night on Earth is freezing, but the view isn't too bad. Andrew isn't sure if he's been counting stars or moon rocks for the past hour; either way it's done the trick and made him tired at last. He lowers his hand from his left eye and blinks at Neil, whose hair looks like Allison attacked him with a curling iron and a fork.

“Couldn't sleep,” Neil grins sheepishly. “Thought I'd join you.”

He shakes his hand free, revealing a whisky bottle and two thermos cups. He sets about making some of the roasted oolong tea they bought from a street seller and pours a generous measure of whisky into each cup before handing one over. It smells like a musty bonfire.

“So, you burned the tape.”

Andrew takes a sip of his tea and shivers as it smoulders its way down his throat. He looks at the sad remains of Nicky's tape in the fire. His cousin's voice is still loud and clear in his head like someone saved the audio file directly to his brain cells.

“That bad?” Neil asks, both hands cupped around his tea cup. The steam smudges his expression, though his eyes are bright and sharp as ever in the darkness, firelight dancing in their depths.

“I think,” Andrew says slowly, “I want to see them.”

It's a strange thing; wanting. The only things Andrew wants these days are cigarettes and to be left alone. There are things he enjoys – tea with Bee in her workshop, sparring with Renee, candy, flying, looking at Neil's legs and imagining them wrapped around him. It's not quite wanting, but he takes what he can get.

And now, this.

“I'll come with you,” Neil says. He doesn't even have the decency to phrase it as a question.

“Whatever,” Andrew says. He lights a cigarette on the last embers of the fire and nearly burns his fingertips.

“Where do they live?”

“Germany,” Andrew says. “Or what's left of it.”

“Huh,” Neil makes. “I think mom and I hid out there for a while once. Hey, we should get some of those piyokos before we leave, they're really popular on Earth. They're disgustingly sweet, you're going to love them. And Matt said to bring back a souvenir.”

Andrew doesn't need a cybernetic eye to remember the exact taste and texture of the crumbly cakes shaped like small birds, or the laughter in Nicky's lilting voice as he called Andrew and Aaron his little piyokos, his lucky birds.

“I never really did that before,” Neil muses, looking at the sky with the ghost of a smile on his face. “Collect souvenirs. We only took what we could easily carry and left behind the rest. I've been to so many places but I can't even remember the names of some of them.”

“Good riddance,” Andrew mutters, left eye throbbing as he presses it shut again.

It's no use. He can still see Nicky's smile.

*

They pack up in the morning and have a small breakfast. Neil listens to the weather forecast as he jogs around his monoracer and does some stretches. Andrew smokes three cigarettes and kicks dirt over the ashes of last night's fire.

The flight to Europe takes several hours, though not as long as it would have been back when planes were still in use. Bee has an ancient Boeing in her workshop that she tinkers with when business is slow. Maybe one day she'll teach Andrew how to fly it.

It's late afternoon when they land in Berlin. The city has a literal underground scene these days – most of its inhabitants went down into the underground train tunnels in the years following the gate disaster. They extended the tunnels into a maze of black markets, bed and breakfast bunkers, twenty-four hour clubs, stores and tattoo parlours. The old trains were repurposed into infirmaries and classrooms, compartments turned into bungalows for people to live in.

Andrew and Neil park their monoracers inside what used to be Alexanderplatz station. Neil buys a few boxes of piyokos from a ragged looking kid and two cups of coffee to keep them going. He's fine until they move down into the tunnels, chattering away to nobody in particular at first, then he grows increasingly quiet and pale the deeper into the ground they proceed.

It's hot and windy in the tunnels. Noise echoes from every direction and music thumps in the distance. Graffiti grows on the walls like moss and glowing mushrooms in different colours light the way. They dodge a very persistent dealer trying to sell them Red Eye for a fraction of the usual price, which means it's probably cranberry juice laced with caffeine. Andrew doesn't miss the way Neil keeps his hand tightly on the gun hidden under his ( _Andrew’s_ ) leather jacket.

Andrew leads them, following maps that are burnt into his brain even though he’s never been here before. Clubgoers spill out of a doorway with neon paint smeared over their faces and upper bodies. Neil jerks out of the way and ends up slipping and stumbling against Andrew. He feels hot and damp under Andrew's hands and his breath is going fast.

“Neil,” Andrew says, steadying him. Neil goes rigid against him and stops breathing altogether. “Neil, snap out of it.”

“I don't like being underground,” Neil wheezes laboriously. “I can't... I can't run.”

“Yes, you can, if you know where to go,” Andrew murmurs, holding him tight. They're pressed into an alcove, away from the people and the noise. Neil's chest is rabbiting away under the fabric of Andrew's jacket like his heart is going to jump out of it at any moment.

“Trust me.”

Neil goes limp in his arms all at once. He's still trembling but he nods, and after a few more minutes he seems lucid enough to go on. Andrew leads them through another tunnel that slants slightly upwards and then opens into a cavernous space. An old, peeling train stands still on the tracks in the middle of the hall. Astroturf lines the ground on one side of it, the rest of the station looks like a school cafeteria, except underground.

“What is this place?” Neil pants, looking around.

“A school.”

As if on cue, the red lights above the compartment doors start flashing and a brief alarm sounds. The doors slide open, spilling a horde of screaming children out onto the Astroturf. Andrew waits until most of them have drained away down the tunnels before approaching one of the compartments.

A middle-aged man steps out with a briefcase tucked under his arm. He has brown skin, wears a gleaming wedding ring on his hand and a kind smile not unlike the one of the man who adopted him many years ago. He was an orphan after the gate disaster, according to the files Andrew has locked away in his brain cells.

“Can I help you?” Hugo Klose says in polite German. His eyes widen when Andrew steps into the light of a lamp, then he frowns. “Do I know you?”

“No,” Andrew says. “But I know you.”

*

“I heard the story, of course,” Hugo says as they wait for the train on a crowded underground platform. Neil is standing close to Andrew's side, eyes flitting over the crowd like nervous fairies. Hugo looks relaxed and the sort of dusty-book tired that good teachers often have etched into their features. Not that Andrew had many of those, but Hugo does remind him a little bit of Bee.

“To be honest, I didn't think they'd ever be able to revive you. Papa never gave up hope, though. He still has pictures of you on the family wall and everything. He rotates them out every year.”

Andrew doesn't answer. The train glides into the station and spares them an awkward silence. The tops of the wagons are covered in earth and planted with more of the glowing mushrooms, some kind of weird guerilla gardening project. Small, spindly trees grow inside the compartments, providing branches to hold on to as well as pale, ghostly apples that look vaguely unappetising. Neil picks one, rubs it on his jeans and sniffs it, then takes a cautious bite.

“Go on, they're not poisonous,” Hugo says around a smile. “Though a donation is appreciated if you take one.”

He points to a slot nestled between the tree roots and Andrew swipes his cash card through it. The train shudders to a halt and they get off at Neu-Neukölln, making their way through a busy flea market set up on the platform and following several tunnels until they reach a quieter residential area.

“Here we are,” Hugo murmurs, stopping outside an old, repurposed train wagon. Curtains and flower boxes have been attached to the windows and a rundown deck chair is parked between a small greenhouse and a water pump. Gardening tools are scattered throughout as if someone got bored halfway through weeding the little vegetable patch. A dog barks inside the trailer as they walk up to the door.

“Calm down, Greta, you old fool,” someone grumbles, then the door swings open and the dog bursts out and jumps Hugo with excited yips and whines. Hugo laughs and scratches the mutt behind her long, floppy ears. She's very old and grey, like her owner, who is staring at Andrew like he's just seen a ghost.

“Wow,” Hugo stage-whispers, “I don't think I've ever seen him speechless. Alright there, papa?”

Nicky Hemmick – Klose now, not Hemmick for a long, long time – makes a wheezing sound and promptly sits down on the stairs outside the trailer.

*

“I don't understand,” Nicky says for the third time, his shaking hands clutched around a cup of coffee. “Why didn't the lab notify me? I always made sure they had my current address.”

“Did you ever contact them and ask?” Neil demands coldly, the first thing he's said since introducing himself. They're gathered around the kitchen table with Hugo, Nicky's husband Erik and Greta the dog, who has her head in Hugo's lap and is happily accepting treats. A crackly radio is reeling off the weather forecast for the night – chance of rock showers: seventy percent.

“I – not recently, no,” Nicky sighs. Erik is rubbing supportive circles into his hunched back. “I used to, for the longest time. We always joked about it, Aaron and me, how we'd end up driving all the staff there insane one day. Katelyn actually worked there as a nurse for a while, before the lab got sold. That's how she and Aaron met, isn't that incredible? So basically, you were Aaron’s wingman even though you were frozen.”

He laughs weakly.

“Who gave up first?” Neil keeps pushing, his coffee untouched. “You or Aaron?”

“Hey now,” Erik says, holding up a hand. “Nicky never gave up. But at some point, he had to live his own life, and so did Aaron.”

“I still can't believe it,” Nicky moans. “I can't believe you're actually here.”

He makes a sound somewhere between a laugh and a choked sob. Hugo reaches out to squeeze his shoulder, then gets up and mutters something about making more coffee even though everyone's cups are still full. Greta starts to trot after him, then curls up on Nicky's feet instead with a huff.

Neil's arm is hard and warm where it's pressed against Andrew's. There are things Andrew thought he'd say, but his brain is overgrown with useless, glowing mushrooms and his mouth is clamped shut so tight it hurts.

“So where is Aaron?” Neil asks for him.

“Still at work, probably,” Nicky smiles weakly. “Officially, he's retired, of course. But he helped build the infirmary here, it's his life. The day Aaron stops working is the day he dies. He has a late shift tonight but I left a message for him.”

The cloth on the table has a complex geometric pattern. Andrew tries to focus on the pattern instead of the images from his left eye. He misses part of the conversation, stuck on the voice of the radio announcer instead as it calmly recites reports from other districts, the burble of the coffee machine, the soft clatter of the spoon Nicky is playing with, the nervous bounce of Neil's leg right next to his own. Hugo puts a fresh pot of coffee down on the table and a jug of spiced hot chocolate next to it. Neil pours him a cup and Andrew manages to unclench his jaw long enough to take a sip. There's so much chilli powder in it that Andrew feels like he's going to start breathing smoke any moment now, but it's good, grounding. Somehow the dog has migrated to his feet without him noticing – her weight, too, is surprisingly soothing.

He takes a deep breath.

“I got your tape.”

The conversation stutters to a halt. Nicky stares at him in confusion, then gasps and blinks rapidly several times. A tear slides down his wrinkled face.

“Oh, Andrew...”

He presses a hand over his mouth and Andrew looks down at his own hands, fisted painfully in his lap, the knuckles white. Greta whines low in her throat and bumps her snout against Andrew's knee.

“Why don't you stay the night?” Erik offers into the silence. “It's almost dinner time, and you can't fly in this weather anyway. I'll make pasta.”

“I'm sure they'll want to see Aaron, too,” Nicky says, perking up and nodding enthusiastically. “It's Sunday tomorrow, he'll probably be over for breakfast if he doesn't get called away. And the girls, maybe.”

He looks painfully hopeful. Neil glances at Andrew and gently nudges his hand under the table. Andrew shivers. He's tired, so tired. He doesn't want to stay, but he doesn't think he can move, let alone make it all the way back aboveground.

“Fine.”

“Well, that's settled then,” Nicky beams, clapping his hands. “Hugo, are you staying?”

“No, Luzia's making mushroom ragout. I can't possibly miss that,” Hugo laughs. “I'll leave you to it. Nice to meet you at last, Uncle Andrew. And you, Neil.”

“Bye,” Neil says, not even bothering to make it sound polite. Andrew wonders at the way he can be so charming one moment and so abrasive the next.

“We don't have much space I'm afraid,” Nicky babbles, wringing his hands. “The sofa's quite comfortable though, it folds out. You boys don't mind sharing, do you? Let me get you some sheets, and we'll hang up a curtain so you two can have some privacy. Bathroom's in here if you want to freshen up...”

Andrew takes the towels Nicky shoves at him and locks himself inside the tiny bathroom. For a moment he just listens to the noises outside as Erik starts cooking and Nicky and Neil get the sofa bed ready with Greta's “help”. Then he splashes his face with lukewarm water and rubs vigorously at it with a towel. Next he sits down on the floor and goes through some of the breathing exercises that Bee taught him, back when he was still working for her and used to have panic attacks and nightmares from Easthaven all the time. His head is pounding and his hands are still shaky, but the familiar routine manages to calm him down enough to go back outside. Neil is sitting cross-legged on the folded-out sofa, sheets strung up on either side to curtain it off from the rest of the trailer. Erik and Nicky are talking and puttering about in the kitchen, the radio is playing some old blues and jazz, and Greta has her nose in Andrew's bag, sniffing curiously.

“Okay?” Neil asks quietly. Andrew sits down next to him and looks around at the dried herbs hanging from the ceiling, the framed photos on the wall, the jar of dog treats on the bookshelf, the cheerful rag rug on the floor covered in Greta's hair.

The smell of fried onions and garlic starts drifting over from the kitchen. Greta pushes her head up into Andrew's palm, silently begging for pets, and Andrew slowly strokes his hand over her soft ears.

“Yes,” he says. “You?”

“Yes,” Neil smiles.

*

“This is just... too weird,” Nicky giggles. He's holding his wine glass so precariously that Erik takes it from him and puts it in a safe spot on the table, out of reach of his flailing hands. “My long-lost cousin and his incredibly good-looking boyfriend are sitting here, at this table, eating spaghetti.” He turns to Neil: “You would have been just my type once upon a time, you know. You're lucky Andrew snatched you up before I met you.”

“Never mind him, he says that to all the pretty boys,” Erik chuckles, winking at Neil. “Took me twenty years to tie this one down. Wouldn't say yes to my proposal before that. I had to ask him seven times, can you believe it?”

Andrew looks at Neil and raises an eyebrow. Neil shrugs lightly and sips at his juice, not bothering to correct the boyfriend assumption or react to the blatant flirting. Nicky wheedled Erik into making dessert – sweet, oozy chocolate cakes with a melted chocolate centre and raspberry sauce. Andrew is in the process of demolishing the rest of Neil's cake while Neil is finishing up Andrew's sauce.

“So, how did you two meet?” Nicky wants to know, snatching up his wine again. “Were you frozen, too, Neil?”

“No,” Neil says. “I was trying to clean out a casino but Andrew ruined my devious plan. Then he chased me down and recruited me to his crew.”

Nicky laughs, delighted.

“Alright, you don't have to tell us if you don't want to. Oh, let me get my photo album, boy have I got a treat for you... I am forever sad that I don't have any actual baby pictures of the twins, but if you ignore the scowly faces, they were the cutest little things at fifteen! They looked like small, grumpy, fluffy birds, like piyokos! Here...”

Andrew, finished with his chocolate cake, gets up abruptly and leaves the room. He doesn't need to see those pictures – he has them displayed on an endless loop all day, every day, and he needs some fresh air.

Well. As fresh as it gets down here. Vents only go so far.

He sits on the stairs outside and lights a cigarette. The ceiling lamps have been dimmed down to spidery emergency lights, fluorescent mushrooms peek out between the rocks and graffiti at strategic intervals. Water drips somewhere and every now and then a tiny black mouse flits past. Greta the dog noses her way out of the trailer, solemnly sitting guard beside him and staring off into the gloom.

“Mind if I join you?”

Nicky's joints creak as he lowers himself onto the steps. Andrew offers him a cigarette but Nicky declines. Greta whines and tucks herself between them, unsure which human she wants pets from, and Nicky leans down to press a noisy kiss to her soft head.

“I left Erik with your boy for a bit,” he says and chuckles. “They're taking the radio apart.”

“Why do you think Neil is my boyfriend?” Andrew asks, flicking ash from his cigarette. Nicky hums, amused.

“I may not have been the most observant at eighteen, but I spent most of my teenage years stuck so far in the closet I nearly suffocated. I knew you were gay within a week of knowing you, Andrew.”

“You never said.”

“You weren't ready,” Nicky shrugs. “I figured you'd come out to me on your own time. I got you those books, remember? Left some stuff lying around, leaflets and such... Aaron used to hate me for it. He got some therapy, you know. Mellowed out with age.”

Andrew's left eye still sees Aaron at sixteen, bruised and grubby and angry and high, calling Nicky a fag. He can't imagine his brother growing up. He can't imagine himself growing old.

“Why didn't you come home?” Nicky asks softly, letting Greta lick his palm. “Neil said they defrosted you twelve years ago. Why didn't you contact us?”

Andrew condenses the truth down to, “I wasn't well,” and Nicky nods, looking sad.

“We'd have come to visit, you know. If you'd reached out to us... We'd have dropped everything.”

Andrew's throat burns and spasms around the words. They sound rough when he finally spits them out: “I know.”

“God, you're so young,” Nicky blurts out. “Somehow I didn't think you'd be so young.”

Andrew flicks the butt of his cigarette away into the darkness.

“I was never young,” he says, watching Drake smirk at him across a long-gone dinner table while Cass spoons more food on his plate with a smile.

*

“Is this okay?” Neil whispers, crawling into bed. He's wearing a thin t-shirt and grey boxers, and his eyes are luminous in the dark. Andrew reaches out and tugs on the VR goggles that are still slung around his neck. From there he slowly lets his hand drift into Neil's hair, currently dyed a shade of green so dark it's almost black. He hasn't put his contacts back in since Andrew asked him to take them out.

“Yes.”

Neil's eyes don't close. They lie facing each other in the dark, breathing, staring. Andrew's fingers brush knots out of Neil's wild curls. The sheets smell unfamiliar, but Neil's scent is heady and warm on Andrew's tongue.

He wants. Wants to kiss him, taste him, wrap his arms around him and pull him close. Feel his heartbeat lined up with his own. Run his hands under that threadbare t-shirt and go exploring down south, find out what he has to do until Neil forgets to keep his voice down.

“Do you want to fuck,” is what comes out of his mouth instead.

“Not particularly,” Neil yawns and shrugs. Andrew lets go of his hair and pulls his arm back, but Neil stops him. “I like that, you can keep going.”

“What else do you like,” Andrew forces himself to ask. Neil's teeth gleam as he grins.

“All sorts of things,” he teases.

“Like what?”

Neil scoots a little closer.

“Kissing's nice,” he murmurs. “I like to be held, it makes me feel safe. Your hands, I like those a lot. And your shoulders. The way you hold your cigarettes, and how you smell. I like when you flirt with me, even when you insult me, and I think I like your mouth, too, but I’d like it better if it was on mine.”

The words wash over Andrew and make him feel sleepy and aroused at the same time. There's something about Neil's soft-and-rough voice that goes straight to his dick.

“Most of all, I like you.”

“Shut up,” Andrew mutters, fingers tightening in Neil's hair.

“It's kind of a new concept for me, too,” Neil admits. He finds the inside of Andrew's wrist and draws figures of eight on the sensitive skin just above his armbands, making him shiver. “We could try kissing and see where it goes, if you want.”

“Idiot,” Andrew says, though it comes out much softer than planned. He leans in and captures Neil's amused mouth in a hard kiss, pushing and pulling and biting and licking. Their legs tangle and hook and reel each other in. Andrew's hand is fisted in Neil's hair and Neil's hand is curled around Andrew's wrist like twin anchors. Neil's mouth cracks open easily under Andrew's and he can feel the wet vibrations when Neil hums. He tastes like sour mint and his lips are chapped and dry and Andrew's thumb digs into the small dimple in his cheek. Neil is smiling into their kiss and it’s making Andrew lose his mind just a little bit. He could kiss him for hours; could kiss him and kiss him and rub himself raw against him until he comes and then kiss him some more. Neil makes a mewly little noise when Andrew bites at his lower lip and Andrew leaks precome in his boxers at the sound, too gone to even care.

“Fuck,” Neil gasps when they come up for air (or sanity, or both). Andrew quietly agrees and lets his fingers soothe over the curls that his fingers have tugged into feral shapes.

“Thought you didn't like that,” he murmurs.

“I didn't say that,” Neil hums, chasing a kiss down the line of Andrew's jaw. Andrew pushes his face away before he can reach his neck. “I told you, I'm not an android. My body works just fine. I’m just not as bothered about it as other people.”

“Yeah?” Andrew mumbles, gently biting at Neil’s lower lip. “And what does it take to bother you?”

“Wouldn’t you like to know?” Neil says, quiet laughter tucked into the crevices of his words. He smudges another kiss against Andrew’s jaw and his mouth finds Andrew’s again, slow and hotly languid now, his skilled tongue idly teasing Andrew’s breathing pattern apart.

“So is that a no?” Andrew checks when he remembers how to make words.

“It’s a no for now,” Neil decides, tracing the pattern on his pillowcase. “I’ll think about it.”

“You don’t have to.”

“I know that,” Neil says with a tiny thumbprint of a smile lurking in the corner of his mouth. “I want to, though.”

Andrew rubs his face against the pillow and swallows down the strange surge of gratitude that wells up inside him.

“What about you?” Neil asks quietly. Their hands get tangled up on the mattress between them and Andrew’s thumb nuzzles into Neil’s palm. “What do you like?”

Andrew’s chest feels a bit sore at the question, but he tries to gather enough brain-spit to answer. It takes him a while and Neil waits patiently, ghosting kisses over Andrew’s knuckles.

“I don’t like to be touched,” Andrew forces past his teeth. Neil immediately withdraws, but Andrew tightens his hand around Neil’s to stop him and tries again: “I like sex, but on my terms.”

“And what are those?” Neil wants to know.

“Handcuffs, usually,” Andrew says dryly. “I get the guy off, not the other way around.”

“Kinky,” Neil teases, grinning, and Andrew puts his cold feet on him in revenge, making him yelp and squirm. “Would you tie me up as well?”

“Maybe,” Andrew says, meaning _no_. Trust is a big word for him, so he won’t use it, but – there’s something with Neil, a kind of certainty that he never had with Roland or any of his other irregulars, even though he’s known them longer than Neil. More than that, he _wants_ to trust Neil. That one’s definitely new.

“And what if I just want to kiss?” Neil asks, serious again.

“Then we just kiss.”

“What if that’s all I ever want to do?”

“Then that’s all we ever do.”

Neil looks at him in the dark, fingers squeezing around Andrew’s, and nods.

*

Neither of them gets much sleep that night.

Nicky brings them coffee in the morning and Andrew pulls the blanket over his head with a grunt and tries to go back to sleep. He hears Neil getting up and going on a run with Greta and Erik, who are both rather spry for their age. Nicky sings in the kitchen as he makes breakfast. For a moment that is so familiar that it takes Andrew several minutes of furious blinking until he can tell which of his eyes is telling the truth.

He takes a shower in the tiny bathroom and prods at the faint hickeys on his neck. When he sees that Neil somehow stole all of his clean clothes he spends a minute silently cursing him and takes a fresh cup of coffee outside to smoke.

“Holy shit,” someone says. “I thought he'd finally gone senile.”

Andrew looks up. A short, old man with grey hair wearing a beret and glasses stands a few feet away from him, his own cigarette forgotten in his hand. He looks like someone who doesn't smile much, but not because he doesn’t have any reason to. His eyes are hazel, the exact same shade as Andrew's right one.

He's never seen his brother so put-together.

“You gained weight,” Andrew says, blowing smoke in his direction. The Aaron in the left field of his vision is skinny, reedy; malnourished and unhealthy. Aaron on the right is both fitter and pudgier, his skin looks less sallow, his hair more grizzled.

“Good to see you, too,” the man who is and isn't his identical twin says warily. “I thought Nicky had lost his marbles when he left me that message saying you were back.”

“Maybe you're just hallucinating,” Andrew shrugs.

“Doesn't feel like I am,” Aaron says, tapping his temple. He should know, Andrew supposes.

“How long have you been sober?”

“A long time,” Aaron says. “Not all the time you were gone, but most of it. Been in rehab twice. Nicky helped.”

“So you're a smoker now,” Andrew points out. Aaron looks down at his cigarette and sighs when he sees that it's gone out.

“Gotta have something,” he says. “The good thing about picking up smoking when you're old is that you don't have to worry so much about lung cancer anymore.”

“I'm not worried,” Andrew says dismissively, finishing his cigarette. He takes his empty coffee cup and walks up the steps to the trailer, but Aaron calls him back.

“Nicky said you brought a boyfriend.”

Andrew waits for something else, a question or an accusation or – something. Aaron just looks at him curiously.

The question, “Are you happy?” isn't what Andrew expects.

He thinks about it.

“Something like that,” he says. Aaron nods, and they go inside together.

*

“Well, I'd say this trip wasn't a complete waste of time after all,” Neil says as they're walking Greta after breakfast. Nicky, Erik and Aaron are squabbling over where to go next and Greta is sniffing some mushrooms, pulling on her leash.

“How so?” Andrew asks, keeping an eye on the dog in case she tries to eat the mushrooms.

“Now we know that you'll age well,” Neil grins, looking pointedly at Aaron. Andrew gives him a shove. Neil stumbles backward, laughing, so Andrew grabs him by the lapel and pulls him in again for a kiss. He doesn't know what the fuck it is but something about Neil's laughter is addictive and mesmerising and really fucking hot.

“ _And_ I saw physical proof of your fifteen-year-old goth aesthetic,” Neil breaks away from him to say. “That eyeliner was quite something. Just wait until I tell Allison.”

“You will not,” Andrew growls, kissing him again. Neil hums and runs his hand over Andrew's shoulder. They both nearly lose their balance when Erik whistles and Greta abruptly sprints off to her owners.

They suffer through a tour of the “neighbourhood” and a visit to Nicky's favourite trailer café. Andrew orders a giant slab of boozy Black Forest cake and Neil contents himself with stealing the cherry on top of it. Nicky talks a mile a minute – nothing has changed there – and Erik and Aaron are both happy to sit quietly with their coffees and chip in occasionally when prompted.

“Do you have any pets?” Nicky wants to know when Greta attempts to steal his sandwich for the third time.

“Two cats,” Neil says before Andrew can reply.

“Oooh, what are they called?”

“King Fluffkins and Sir Fat Cat McCatterson,” Neil says, deadpan, and Andrew chokes on his hot chocolate a bit, thinking of the hairless robots back on the _Bebop_. Nicky is so busy gushing that Greta finally manages to get a hold of the remains of his sandwich after all.

They stop by Aaron's trailer after the café and endure being introduced to Aaron's wife Katelyn, who looks like she could kill a man with her bare hands but smiles like the sun is actually shining underground. One of their twin daughters, Emily, lives in a different district with her family. The other one swings by on an antique motorbike, tattooed and clad head to toe in black leather except for a bright pink scarf, her blond hair cut short and her bare arms bulging with muscles.

She wears a pair of black armbands, and Neil has to turn around and fake a coughing fit, wheezing something about how “she’s totally your mini-me”.

“Howdy,” Andrea Minyard says, swinging herself down from her bike. “I heard my namesake was in town.”

“Andrea, Andrew,” Aaron says dryly. “Your... uncle.”

“More like nephew,” Andrea grins. “He's even tinier than you, dad.”

“No I'm not,” Andrew says, crossing his arms.

“He is,” Neil decides to betray him. “He'll be rounder too if he keeps getting most of his nutrients from cake and ice-cream.”

Andrew glares at him and Andrea throws back her head and laughs.

“Sounds like a man after my heart. Want a go on my bike?” she offers, patting the seat. She leans close and murmurs, conspiratorially: “Her name’s Greta II, but I like to call her Murder Bride.”

Andrew squints and thinks she might be his favourite niece after all.

[ ](https://www.flickr.com/photos/143876612@N03/29507260977/in/album-72157695091145580/)

*

“Promise you'll call,” Nicky pleads for the fifth time. “Neil, make sure he calls. You have our number, Aaron's number, Hugo's number, Andrea's number, the number of the infirmary, Katelyn's mother's number...”

They are leaving with several more bags than they came with. Greta is sniffing around and licking everyone's hands. Aaron, Katelyn, Andrea, Hugo, Hugo's wife and children, and Erik all came to say goodbye as well, and Andrew is feeling itchy with the need to get away.

“Are you sure you don't want to stay for dinner?” Erik asks.

“Do you have enough food for the journey?” Nicky frets.

“Emily will be so sad that she missed you,” Katelyn sighs.

“Don't forget to get me in touch with that Bee woman,” Andrea reminds him, leaning against her bike. “I could really use a good mechanic.”

“We're going now,” Neil announces, hoisting another bag over his shoulder. The group grows quiet at last, save for Hugo's toddler squealing at Greta, and Andrew finds it suddenly hard to lift his feet off the ground and leave.

“Goodbye, Andrew,” Nicky says, with tears in his eyes. “Neil, you'll look after him, won't you?”

“I will make sure he always wears clean underwear and eats all his vegetables,” Neil swears solemnly, crossing his fingers behind his back.

“See ya, squirt,” Andrea says.

“You can visit us anytime,” Hugo says.

“Think about what I said,” Aaron says. “Be a shame if you died from lung cancer after we went to all that trouble of deep-freezing you.”

Andrew salutes him with a cigarette and finally finds the strength to turn around. They're all waving when he looks back, shouting well-wishes, some more polite than others. Erik has his arm around a crying Nicky and Aaron stands at the front like he's followed them a few steps, hands in his pockets and a pensive look on his face.

“Nice family you got there,” Neil murmurs with a somewhat wistful smile on his face. “Definitely better than mine, but that's no big feat.”

“Don't let Matt hear you say that. He seems to think the _Bebop_ is your family now.”

“Hmm,” Neil smiles. “He may be onto something there.”

He slides his hand into Andrew's, and Andrew doesn't pull away.

*

Andrew inspects the _Monster_ for potential vandalism and packs their souvenirs away, then pats his pockets for his flying gloves. Coming up empty, he glares at Neil, who looks innocent and hides his hands behind his back.

“Filthy pickpocket,” Andrew grumbles. “Get your own gloves.”

Neil grins and climbs into his racer. She's called _Foxface_ owing to her faintly orange paint job, her snout-like shape and the two guns on top that look like pointy ears when retracted. Neil's almost as attached to her as he is to his robots. They take off together and Andrew is just looking forward to a long soak in his bathtub on the _Bebop_ when there's a flash of blinking lights in the night sky and a deafening cacophony of sirens starts up.

“Fuck.”

He swerves, but they're surrounded by several dozen police ships, all of them with their weapons out and trained directly at them.

“Babe, why didn't you tell me we were invited to a party?” Neil says gleefully over the comm. “I would have dressed up for the occasion.”

“Nathaniel Wesninski,” blares a voice over loudspeakers. “You are under arrest. Surrender or we will shoot.”

“Mm, my favourite kind of party,” Neil purrs. “ISSP systems are so easy to hack. Here we go.”

“Leave some for me, _honey_ ,” Andrew says dryly. The police ships are slowly closing in and Andrew gets ready to shoot at a second's notice. Neil is humming over the comm. Then the first ship suddenly breaks rank, flies a few loops, and crashes spectacularly in the middle of Alexanderplatz.

“Whoops,” Neil chuckles. “It seems my remote-control skills are a bit rusty. Let's try this again.”

Before the other police officers can make sense of what just happened, all of their ships start spiralling wildly out of control. Some of them crash into each other, some trundle unspectacularly to the ground, some spin off into the distance never to return. Andrew watches the ensuing chaos and sighs.

“You couldn't have left just one for me to shoot down?”

“My bad,” Neil says sheepishly. “Next time, okay?”

“So selfish,” Andrew laments. His radar starts beeping shrilly at the same time as Neil shouts out a sudden warning. Before Andrew can react, something collides heavily with his ship. There's a deafening bang, jarring him to the bone, and he tilts sideways, systems shrieking in displeasure and adrenaline burning like gasoline in his veins. It's all he can do to aim for the top of the nearest building in time, let alone control the impact.

The _Monster_ hits the roof hard and at a bad angle, and the vision in both of Andrew's eyes goes white and then black all at once.

*

“Hey, sleepyhead.”

Andrew blinks into consciousness. It's dark and quiet and he's surrounded by stars. Everything hurts – nothing new there – and he's propped uncomfortably into a cockpit that's only meant for one person. He's pretty sure there's dried blood on his head.

“Drink this,” Neil says, handing over a juice pack. “You were out for a while. Your ship was hit by a moon rock, I patched you up as well as I could but Abby needs to take a look at your head as soon as we get back to the _Bebop_.”

“Shh,” Andrew slurs around the straw, “ship.”

“Your ship’s in pretty bad shape,” Neil says with a wince. “Don't worry, I'm towing her. You're gonna have to get her fixed up though.”

“Bee,” Andrew sighs, closing his eyes until the throbbing in his head dulls down again.

“Uhh, okay. Maybe you took more of a beating than I thought. Ah, shit, don't fall asleep, you're not supposed to do that if you have a concussion.”

“Sh'tup,” Andrew mutters, swatting at air.

“What was that? Thank you, Neil, for looking after me and getting me and my busted piece of crap ship out of there? Why, Andrew, you're very welcome. Any time.”

“Ass,” Andrew mumbles before dozing off again. He gets rudely awakened by a blast of experimental funk music from Neil's radio and pries his hand free to give him the finger rather than attempt to shout over the music. Neil ignores him and turns up the volume.

Oh well. Andrew can sleep through noise. It's silence that puts him on edge more than anything, and the little sounds that the silence amplifies, like the creak of a foot on the stairs or the twist of a doorknob in the dark.

“Right,” Neil says, turning off the music and making him jerk awake once more. “What will it take to make you stay awake?”

Andrew prods at his ribs and flinches. His eyes don't want to be open and he feels like he's seconds away from dissociating just to get some relief.

“Story,” he grits out. Something runs down his chin and he really hopes it's blood and not drool.

“Didn't peg you for the bedtime story kinda guy, but okay,” Neil laughs. “I'm nothing if not made of stories.”

Andrew wants to tell him that he's real, realer than anyone he's ever met. His jaw doesn't cooperate though, and then Neil starts talking and Andrew listens instead. Neil's mouth spins words out of nothing like spider's silk, weaving perfect story webs. He talks of hiding out in abandoned mining satellites, hacking astrogate tollbooths and hitchhiking with space truckers. Ancient shamans and creepily accurate fortune-tellers come to life in his words. Underwater cities on Earth and old shipwrecks filled with hallucinogenic mushrooms take form in Andrew’s mind. Neil has anecdotes about squatting with a commune in a floating scrapyard, shoot-outs in old churches with stained glass windows and painted ceilings, being chased through an abandoned theme park at night, making quick money at casinos and narrowly escaping starship pirates. He tells him about all the planets and moons and remote parts of the solar system that he and his mom saw on their nomadic journey. Andrew can see them before him, coming and going like ghosts and trying to squeeze just a little bit more life out of their metaphoric juice pack. A little bit more money here, a new ID there, some drugs to trade, one more target to swindle, a new security system to hack, spaceships to fly.

“I think my mom was happiest with the truckers,” Neil says. “Constantly moving from one place to the next, making up a new story for each of them, always hearing about the newest gossip from every corner of the universe... She was never meant to stay in any one place for too long.”

“It wasn't all action and adventures,” he continues. “To be honest, most of it was sitting around waiting for something to happen, or tedious hours spent in transit to the next place on her never-ending list. Some of her acquaintances were – not good people. Most of the places we stayed in were dirty and rundown and unsafe. Sometimes her paranoia got the best of her and she'd hit me over small things. I was never allowed to make any friends, so I built my own after she was dead. Robots are better company than humans anyway, they don't fuck you over and they don't leave you when you need them the most.”

“Andrew? Andrew, we're home.”

*

Andrew is finally allowed to sleep after a thorough check-up from Abby, who forces two more juice packs on him and painkillers strong enough to knock out a horse. He feels sore and woozy when he wakes up, but mobile enough to sit down in his bathtub and have a good, long soak. Then he makes his way laboriously to the kitchen, slumps at the table and waits for someone to come and make him a cup of tea and some noodles.

The lucky winner today is Wymack.

“So, did you bring back any souvenirs from Earth that aren't bruises?” Wymack asks once he has the coffee machine going, leaning against the counter with his arms crossed. Andrew points at the stack of board games that Neil left on the table, a new Trivial Pursuit among them, and an empty box of piyokos that have already been decimated. The rest of the cakes are safely locked away in Andrew's room.

“I meant more along the lines of a bounty,” Wymack mutters. The microwave beeps and he takes out a cup of sweet and sour chicken noodle soup, setting it down in front of Andrew along with a mug of Irish coffee.

He must look pretty banged-up if Wymack's making him Irish coffee.

“Neil wouldn't say where you two disappeared to. Anything I should know about?”

Andrew shrugs, slurping his noodles. Wymack sighs.

“We need to talk about what we're gonna do when the Syndicate comes knocking. I'm calling a crew meeting tonight. If you have a plan, this would be a good time to share it.”

“You know me, Captain,” Andrew says after he's drained the last of his soup from the cup. “I never have a plan.”

“No, but you're pretty good at coming up with one on the spot. I'm hoping this one doesn't end with my entire crew getting slaughtered by the Syndicate. Should've known that if you ever got yourself a boyfriend, he'd be nothing but trouble.”

Andrew wipes his mouth on his sleeve and wonders how long Wymack's known. Probably longer than Andrew did – for a former ISSP officer, Wymack is a very observant man.

“If you were opposed to trouble you should have put together a different crew, Captain.”

“Don't I know it,” Wymack grumbles, glowering at his coffee.

“Better yet,” Andrew says, perking up a little over the booze to coffee ratio in his mug, “you should have stayed with the ISSP and taken the Syndicate's bribes. You could have married a nice Ganymede fisherwoman, settled down... Maybe you would even have lived long enough to claim your pension. You could have had children of your own! Proper ones, not accidents like Kevin.”

Andrew spreads his hands out in front of him and waits for Wymack to go off on him about how Kevin _is_ his proper son, even if he didn't know that he existed until about a year ago. Instead, Wymack shrugs and says: “I already have more children than I know what to do with.”

The words are so casual, so easy. Something irritatingly warm rises and swells inside Andrew like yeast dough and he plunges his fists into it and kneads it into submission, twists it until all that remains is sticky, frothy anger.

“I am not your child,” he says coldly, pushing his chair back.

Wymack watches him get up with charred brown eyes and sips his coffee, unfazed. The fact that he doesn't even bother to argue with him only sours the ball of anger in Andrew's stomach even further. He yanks out all the chairs in passing and lets them topple over, leaving a stroppy cacophony of bangs and crashes in his wake.

He needs to go sparring, bruises and aches be damned. Or maybe he needs to sleep. Or maybe he needs to see Neil-

No.

Wymack can think what he wants. Andrew doesn't need anyone. Not Kevin and not Neil and definitely not any of the others, or this stupid ship, or Nicky and his happy hippie underground family that sprouted around him like mushrooms from the earth.

He slows down when he passes the hangar and hears a noise. The _Monster_ is a useless pile of scrap metal in the corner and a pair of long legs sticks out from under her open belly, bare-footed and surrounded by tools. A radio is playing crackly blues at low volume. A nearby hologram screen is tuned to the CBC's news channel, currently reporting on the most recent suicide connected to a new religious cult.

“They put a bounty on the guy,” Neil's voice drifts out from under the monoracer. “The leader of this cult, I mean. His name's Kevin King, used to be a neuroscientist before he vanished from the research field. He developed this shady technique that's supposed to copy the soul into digital data via a game console. No one's seen him in years, all of his former colleagues are dead or senile by now. Seth and Allison have gone to get one of those consoles so I can try to hack them. The bounty's pretty good because of all those suicides, ISSP are getting real antsy...”

He pushes himself out and sits up with a groan, stretching until his spine pops.

“Sorry, you're gonna have to take her to a workshop. I did what I could but she needs a buttload of new parts that I don't have,” he sighs, patting the _Monster_ 's flank.

Andrew looks at his wreck of a ship and feels oddly settled at the thought of going to see Bee sooner than planned. He lights two cigarettes and hands one over to Neil, who takes a shallow drag from it and then holds it cupped in his hand.

“How's your head?”

Andrew sits down on a crate and prods at the yeasty mass still fermenting in his insides. The sudden bloating of anger has subsided to the usual starchy nothingness, but there's a sugary residue of unease that he doesn't want to examine any further right now. He takes a drag from his cigarette and exhales slowly.

“Better,” he says. Neil nods and reaches over to switch off the radio and the broadcast, plunging them into cool silence.

“Look what Matt gave me,” he says, tugging something out of his pocket and holding it up for Andrew to see. Light flashes off the edges of the little harmonica. It looks old but well cared for, clean and polished and smooth.

“Can you play?” Andrew asks.

“Not really,” Neil laughs. He puts the harmonica to his mouth and wrangles a few clumsy notes from it. Andrew holds his hand out on a whim and Neil passes it over with a curious look, exchanging it for Andrew's cigarette and stubbing it out on the ground.

Andrew looks down at the harmonica. He hasn't played since before they froze him. His left eye is stuck on Cass again now, dropping a similar instrument in Andrew's palm and closing his fingers around it, offering to teach him. Sitting with her on the back porch of the Spears' house, the setting sun covering everything in mouldering yellow light, thick and fuzzy like pollen. The clear, mournful sound of the harmonica in her hands, rising above the distant rumble of traffic.

He puts it to his lips and blows the dust from his lungs. Then he plays a piece from his memory called _Goodnight_ _Julia_ , something slow and final like the end credits of a movie.

“That was beautiful,” Neil says softly when he's finished. “How did you learn to play like that?”

Andrew doesn't mean to, but he opens his mouth and what comes out is Cass, not in music notes this time but in words. As always, Drake looms in the shadows just beyond her, but Neil listens, waiting for the words to finish falling like rain. Then he gets up and sits down next to him.

“Can I kiss you?”

Andrew holds his hand up next to Neil's face and Neil tilts his head into the offered touch, nuzzling his palm. It makes Andrew shiver and he pulls him closer until their mouths are almost touching. He dips his fingertips into Neil's thick hair – he must have newly shaved down the sides and back this morning, leaving only reddish stubble. Andrew traces the shape of his skull through his skin before grabbing a handful of hair and parting it until he can see the rusty roots under the remaining dark dye.

“The little rabbit stopped hiding,” he remarks. Neil's eyes, too, are still their natural mesmerising blue. Neil shrugs lightly and brushes his nose against Andrew's.

“There's no use anymore, is there? They know where I am.”

“Then dye it back to your natural shade,” Andrew says.

“What will you give me for it?” Neil murmurs, his hot breath rushing over Andrew's face.

“What do you want?”

“Hmm. Another song,” Neil hums, tapping the harmonica nestled in Andrew's lap. “Something fun.”

“Fine. When you've dyed it,” Andrew says, then closes the last bit of distance between them and kisses him, his hand spanning the back of Neil's head, lips brushing up against Neil's until they go pliant and open to him. The kiss is languid and sticky, an idle Sunday afternoon of a kiss. Andrew dips his tongue into the honey of Neil's mouth and cups his other hand over Neil's throat, feeling the jump in his Adam's apple as he swallows and the rapid hum of his pulse just under his skin. His grip is loose yet heavy enough that Neil's jaw goes slack and saliva pools under his tongue.

Neil sighs into the kiss and hooks one finger into Andrew's collar. They drift together, kissing themselves raw, and only break apart when there's an aborted curse and a clatter from the doorway. Dan is standing outside with a hand over her mouth and an amused quirk to her eyebrows.

She clears her throat and lowers her hand.

“Just wanted to let you know that Wymack's calling a meeting in the lounge,” she wheezes. “Since we kinda decided to defy the Syndicate and all that. Also, Seth and Allison brought back dinner.”

Andrew gazes at Neil, who looks dishevelled and flustered and a little bit dazed, his mouth still glistening and his finger still anchored in Andrew's collar.

“Right,” Neil slurs and blinks like he's waking up from a dream. “We'll... we'll be there. In a minute.”

“Sure, take your time,” Dan grins and ducks back outside.

“Huh,” Neil says.

“Dinner,” Andrew demands, poking him until he stands up. One of his cat bots whirs into sight, gathering up tools and dumping them in his toolbox. Neil moves a few things at random before giving up with a sigh and wandering to the door.

Andrew tucks the harmonica in his pocket and follows.

*

“So,” Wymack says, perched on the coffee table with his arms crossed and a grim look on his face. Empty food cartons are stacked on the floor and Andrew is slurping his milkshake noisily through a straw, but everything else is quiet now that they're all fed. “One of the highest-ranked Syndicate members is going to be out for our blood if we don't hand Neil over within the next five days, and we're going to come up with a plan. Any ideas?”

“Easy,” Seth says from where he's leaning against a wall, chewing on a toothpick. He jerks his thumb at Neil. “Hand him over.”

“Any _decent_ ideas?” Wymack corrects himself as half the crew glares at Seth.

Allison makes a show of raising her hand.

“Neil knows how to get into the Red Dragon headquarters, right? Why don't we just blow the whole place up? If we're lucky we'll get both Ichirou and the Butcher. Two birds with one stone.”

“You wouldn't get within a hundred feet of it,” Kevin sniffs. “It's too heavily guarded and they have too many people. The moment you shoot one of them, five more take their place.”

“What if you got inside, though?” Dan muses. “Say you had business with them, or...”

Neil shakes his head, chewing on his thumbnail and bouncing his leg.

“All business is conducted outside of Evermore unless it's with high-ranking members of other syndicates. The only way inside would be if I gave myself up-”

“No,” Andrew says.

“Well, I was _going_ to say that they'd take any weapons from me before I even set foot on Mars anyway, and they'd shoot the rest of you on sight,” Neil snaps.

There's a glum silence while everyone mulls this over. Matt and Renee go and make coffee and return with a tray, handing out cups. Andrew stirs several spoonfuls of sugar into his and adds a splash of almond milk to Neil's before pressing it in his hand.

“Stop chewing your nails,” he murmurs. “It's gross.”

“You're gross,” Neil mutters back petulantly, but wraps his abused fingers around his cup instead.

“I can't decide if you two are more like toddlers or like an old married couple,” Matt grins, watching them with his chin in his hand. “Either way, it's really bizarre to see Andrew having feelings other than hate and destruction.”

“Destruction isn't a feeling,” Kevin frowns.

“It is when Andrew's involved,” Matt argues, ducking down behind Dan when Andrew shoots him a look. Coward.

“Can we focus?” Dan says. There is some more fruitless talking in circles around the fact that there's no easy way out of this, not unless they go down Seth's route and hand Neil over to his father. Which isn't going to happen as long as Andrew is alive. Andrew doesn't really care what they decide – he has his gun and his knives and the _Monster_ , and he's not afraid of the Butcher or Ichirou Moriyama like everyone else in this room. Whatever they send at them, Andrew will deal with it when it comes.

Neil's body grows more and more tense beside him. Andrew puts a hand on his restless thigh and digs his fingers in until Neil jerks and stills.

The screen on the table beeps and everyone goes silent, even Kevin and Seth who have been shouting at each other for the last ten minutes. Renee reaches over and turns it on, accepting the video call waiting for them. A woman’s face appears, dark-skinned and the sort of handsome that is carved out of hard edges and severe lines. Her braided hair is tucked under a cap and her brown eyes immediately start scanning the room.

“Thea,” Kevin gasps, scrambling to get closer to the screen.

“Can we talk in private?” Thea asks, frowning. “And it’s T.M. now, I told you.”

“No way!” Matt exclaims. “You’re T.M.? The Heavy Metal Queen?”

Thea’s eyes flicker to him briefly, like he’s a fly buzzing around in the background, but she doesn’t even bother to reply.

“Who’s the Heavy Metal Queen?” Allison wants to know. Kevin shushes them all vigorously and leans in even closer to the screen.

“This is as private as it gets. You can talk,” he assures her.

“Are you sure?”

“Yes,” Kevin says. “I trust them.”

“Hear, hear,” Allison scoffs.

“Jean escaped,” Thea says curtly. “I thought you should know. They say he got his hands on a great deal of information that would cause the Moriyamas a lot of trouble if it got leaked to the ISSP and rival syndicates. So they’ve put a bounty on him and there’s a rumour that Ichirou is personally looking for him. I reckon it’s only a matter of time until they find him.”

Kevin, looking sickly in the light, swallows and nods.

“Do you know where he is?”

“Try Callisto,” Thea advises. “The Blue Crow. And Kevin?”

“Yes?”

“Be careful.”

She logs off and the screen turns dark again. Andrew watches Kevin, who is trying his best to regulate his breathing, recognising a pattern he taught him in those weeks following Evermore. When Riko was still out there looking for him and Kevin was half-delirious from the medication and the fear, sweating through his hospital gown every night and clinging to Andrew’s hand tight enough to bruise.

“Kevin?” Dan prompts. “Care to explain?”

“Yeah, who was the hot chick?” Allison prods eagerly. “I can’t believe someone out there actually cares about you, Kev. And who’s Jean? Are you actually involved in a hot bisexual threesome without any of us knowing? You’re going to bust our sweepstake!”

Kevin shoots her a glare, red splotches appearing on his cheeks. Renee puts a soothing hand on his shoulder and nudges a fresh cup of coffee at him, and he seems to pull himself together.

“Thea is… an old friend,” he starts reluctantly, kneading his right hand along his prosthesis in a nervous tic. “Her brother was involved with the Syndicate, but they killed him before she was old enough to join. She got out, but we’ve kept in touch.”

“She’s a trucker,” Matt explains enthusiastically. “My mom’s worked with her in the past, she used to tell me all these incredible stories about her. They call her Heavy Metal Queen and there’s a big pot on what her initials stand for because no one knows her real name. Kevin, if you tell us her last name, we could make a fortune!”

Kevin scowls and clears his throat.

“Anyway,” he says pointedly, “I need to find Jean. He’s… we grew up together, after the Moriyamas took me in. His family sold him to the Syndicate when he was only five years old. We were like brothers. Riko, Jean and I were supposed to join the ISSP and work for the Syndicate from within, but then Jean got sent off as a soldier to Titan in the war. After he came back, he was accused of being a spy and sentenced to prison.”

“And here I thought the one advantage of working for the Syndicate was that you were untouchable by the common law,” Wymack mutters.

“He would have been,” Kevin whispers, his metal arm trembling. “But I testified against him.”

“Why?”

Kevin takes a deep, shaky breath.

“Because… because I thought he’d be safer in prison. Riko’s violence was escalating. After Kengo died, he took his anger out on everyone around him. Jean was always his favourite target. I… I wanted to protect him.”

Andrew’s left eye twitches and he nearly smiles at the peculiar parallels; one putting himself in prison to save his brother from his abuser, another sending his brother to prison with the same objective. Even after all this time, he is still inextricably tied to Kevin, for some sick, morbid reason he has yet to figure out.

“Well, it seems he didn’t appreciate that very much, seeing as he broke out and all,” Seth sneers.

“Kevin, I understand that you want to see him,” Dan says quickly, “but I think we should focus on our more immediate problems first. We need your help to save Neil.”

“I don’t _need_ saving,” Neil objects, but grows quiet again when Andrew pinches his thigh hard.

“Didn’t you hear what Thea said?” Kevin says urgently. “Jean has information that we could use to barter for Neil’s freedom. Ichirou doesn’t care if Neil’s father gets his revenge, and Nathan answers to him. If we can get Jean to help us, we have leverage.”

There are murmurs of excitement all around them. Kevin looks sweaty and triumphant, and Andrew can see the calculating expressions on the others’ faces.

“And how are you going to do that? It sounds like the last thing Jean will want to do is hand _his_ only advantage over to you,” he points out coolly, bringing it all to a stop again. Kevin’s face falls.

“I – I don’t know. But I have to try.”

Andrew looks at him for a long time. Kevin’s track record of fulfilling the desperate deals he strikes isn’t very impressive so far. Going to Callisto when half the Syndicate is looking for Jean sounds like a suicide mission destined to fail. But then Neil moves restlessly beside him, and Andrew thinks of all the other suicide missions he’s taken in his life.

And he’s still here, isn’t he?

What a laugh.

“I’m coming with you,” he says.

Kevin seems to sag a bit in relief. He nods and starts to regale Andrew with drivel about how they should leave right away and what kind of equipment they will need to pack for Callisto, where the climate is ruthlessly cold and the population notoriously hostile.

“I’ll go, too,” Dan interrupts.

Seth snorts.

“A woman, on Callisto? Are you sure you can handle it?”

Dan waves him off.

“I’m from Jupiter, remember? I know the type of men this planet breeds. Callisto’s just more of the same, except with more snow.”

“And what’s that supposed to mean?” Seth, Callisto born and bred, asks belligerently, but Allison puts her hand on his arm.

“If you need back-up, let me know,” she says to Dan, her eyes blazing. “I have a few open scores to settle with those men myself. I’ll be on standby with some highly explosive toys.”

“Thank you, Allison,” Dan nods. “I think we should keep this mission small. Neil, I want you to stay here, there’s no use getting you in the crossfire if we run into any Syndicate people. Maybe you and Renee can follow up on that King guy with his cult, we’ll need all the money we can get our hands on if we’re taking on the Moriyamas. Matt, Seth, try to find out as much as you can about Evermore, and have Neil tell you all he knows too. Tickle it out of him if you must. I want us to cover all our bases here.”

Neil is predictably unhappy about his predicament, but Andrew tugs him away before he can kick up a fuss.

“I need to borrow your ship.”

“What?”

“Your ship,” Andrew repeats. “I need it to go to Callisto.”

He doesn’t mention that this will have the convenient side effect of making it less likely that Neil will secretly follow them. Though Andrew wouldn’t put it past him to steal one of the other monoracers just to be contrary. Neil seems to come to the same conclusion and looks like he’s just bit into a slice of lemon.

“I want to come with you.”

“No.”

“You can’t tell me what to do,” Neil fumes, following Andrew back to his quarters. He paces and mutters darkly while Andrew starts throwing a few clothes and a lot of weapons into a bag.

“Neil,” he says when he’s done packing. “Stay.”

Neil stops in his tracks and balls his hands into fists. His breath is coming in harsh puffs.

“I’m not a dog,” he seethes. “What will you give me? For letting you have my ship and staying here?”

“I don’t know, Neil,” Andrew says, suddenly tired of the ever-expanding web of deals and promises that ties him to these people. “What do you want?”

Neil looks at him, lifting his chin defiantly.

“Take me with you.”

“I thought we were negotiating you staying here.”

“Not now. I mean when you leave,” Neil says, gesturing at the ship around them. “After this is all over, after you’ve fulfilled all your promises. When they don’t need you anymore and you move on. I want to come with you. Don’t leave me behind, Andrew.”

Andrew stands frozen in the middle of his room, of the life he’s built for himself here. He isn’t used to planning ahead or thinking about the future. He takes every day as it comes, but now that Neil’s said those words he suddenly knows that he’s right. Kevin and Neil won’t need his protection forever. His deal with Wymack – to work for him in exchange for room and board, a purpose – will end the moment he packs his things into his ship and leaves the _Bebop_ for good. The others don’t need him, most of them don’t even want him there. And his family…

“Andrew,” Neil says softly. Andrew notices that his hands are trembling. He opens his mouth-

“Yes.”


	4. See You, Space Cowboy...

Callisto is freezing and full of junk.

Andrew hunches into his coat. The cold air burns in his nose and lungs even through the bandanna tied around his face and there’s ice crystals frozen to the fur that lines his hood. He can see why people would hide out on Callisto. The sight is bad; smog mixing with snow, stifled daylight, people obscured by hoods and masks and thick cloaks. And yet – or maybe because of this – suspicious glances seem to creep after them everywhere they go, melting into the snow every time Andrew turns around.

The cold is making him paranoid. And he can’t even smoke a fucking cigarette in this weather.

Kevin turns down another alley, walking fast, and stops outside the Blue Crow. It’s a jazz bar, dim brown lighting like dirty snow, the clientele closed off and lost in their own world. A band is playing something appropriately wistful on a small stage. Andrew recognises the face of the saxophonist from the mugshot of Jean Moreau that was all over _Big Shot_ when they were getting ready to leave for Callisto. His hair is longer and he looks thinner, more haggard, his olive skin without the bronze glow, but the grey eyes and sharp features are the same.

They sit at a table in a corner and order drinks. The whisky is bad, the vodka looks cloudy; none of them really touch their glasses. The song the band is playing drifts off into a different melody. The bartender keeps polishing glasses with a filthy rag.

Jean doesn’t look over at them once, but when the performance ends and he’s packed up his saxophone he stops by their table and waits. Kevin drops money on the bar and follows him outside, which means that Andrew and Dan follow, too. They walk in silence through the unrelenting snow until they reach a tall, grey apartment complex. Jean pulls out his keys, unlocks the door and leads them up a desolate flight of stairs, through drifts of rotting garbage, to the thirteenth floor.

Lucky number thirteen, Andrew thinks grimly and goes inside first, hand on his gun.

The apartment is small and uninspired, but at least it’s warm and clean. There’s a piano in one corner, a handful of old pictures tacked to the ugly wallpaper, some scuffed pieces of furniture. It smells faintly like cabbage.

Jean puts down his saxophone case, takes his coat and scarf off and pulls his gun on Kevin in one smooth move. Andrew has his own gun pointed at him just as fast, and they stare each other down for a long moment.

“Jean,” Kevin says brokenly.

“We just want to talk,” Dan offers, holding up her hands. “Please put down the gun.”

Jean’s mouth thins into a bitter smile.

“Give me one reason,” he says, his voice scratchy as if he hasn’t used it in a long time. Kevin opens his mouth and closes it again, apparently at a loss for words. Jean huffs a shred of tired laughter and lowers the gun.

Kevin makes a noise like a dying dog.

“You know,” Jean says conversationally, even though Andrew still has his gun trained on him, “when they sent me to prison, for the longest time I thought it couldn’t be true. I refused to believe it. The Kevin I knew wouldn’t betray me like that. Never. I thought they were lying to me, messing with my head. Fuck knows they did that a lot. But then do you know what happened?” He pauses for dramatic effect. “Riko came to see me.”

Kevin sucks in an aborted breath.

“Jean…”

“No,” Jean says. “I don’t care what you have to say. I’ve had a long time to think about it, about all the reasons why. I know exactly why you did it. I know you probably think you did me a favour.”

He spits it out with such venom that Kevin physically recoils, nearly stepping on Dan’s feet. Dan steadies him and keeps a hand on his shoulder.

“You don’t know what he was like after his father died,” Kevin whispers. His left arm twitches. “You don’t know what he did to us. What he would have done to you.”

“I know that better than anyone,” Jean sneers dismissively. “Do you know what they did to me in prison?”

Kevin swallows and shakes his head.

“No,” Jean says, “of course you don’t. Because you didn’t want to know.”

He sinks down onto the stool in front of the piano with a sigh and strokes the keys, too lightly to produce a sound. Andrew keeps his gun on him.

“I’m sorry,” Kevin wrings from his strained vocal chords.

“I can’t give you what you came for,” Jean says hollowly. “Leave me alone.”

“We could protect you,” Kevin offers feebly. Andrew rolls his eyes and resists the urge to point the gun at him instead. In Kevin’s world, protection means _Andrew’s_ protection, and Andrew has enough Syndicate runaways on his plate right now. It irks him that Kevin is trying to sell his deal with him down the line so carelessly.

“I don’t want your protection,” Jean says. Before Kevin can try to convince him that he does, there’s a knock on the door. Jean stiffens. “You’d better go now.”

“Who is that?” Kevin asks.

“Go,” Jean snaps. “There’s a fire escape–”

The rest of his words are drowned out by gunfire. Andrew and Dan both drag Kevin down to the floor and away from the door. There’s a cry and Jean stumbles, clutching his bleeding arm. Then the door opens, and Kevin gasps and goes ramrod straight in Andrew’s grip.

“Drop your weapons!”

Three men enter, all dressed in black with dark red silk ties. Two of them carry machine guns, the third is unarmed as far as Andrew can see. His coat is expensive wool, his shoes look like someone’s licked them clean, and he has an ostentatious black raven perched on his left shoulder and a red dragon tattooed down his neck, snaking underneath his collar.

Andrew knows who he is even before Kevin breathes, “Lord Ichirou.”

The two goons point their guns at Andrew, Dan and Kevin, but Ichirou holds up his hand. His raven gives a caw and Ichirou tilts his head to the side.

“Kevin Day,” he says, barely a hint of surprise in his voice. “Well, if this isn’t quite the family reunion.”

Kevin breathes shallowly and ducks his head in deference. Ichirou’s eyes flick over to where Jean is hunched over himself, bleeding profusely.

“Moreau,” he offers. “I believe you had a deal to offer me.”

“My lord,” Jean murmurs, taking a step forward. “All I ask is that you take me back into your employ.”

Ichirou considers him. Andrew fingers the edges of his armbands, trying to calculate how quickly he can take out Ichirou’s men before they open fire.

“You would swear loyalty to us once more?” Ichirou demands of Jean.

“I never stopped being loyal to you, my lord.”

“Yet you stole from us, Jean,” Ichirou chides softly.

“I only have the one copy,” Jean pleads. “I destroyed all the rest. I only took it to make sure it would not land in the wrong hands. Please, my lord.”

“I suppose we will find out if you are telling the truth sooner or later,” Ichirou says dismissively. Jean flinches but nods, and Ichirou turns to Kevin. “What about you? The Syndicate has been good to you, has it not? Would you want to be welcomed back into the fold and forgiven?”

“No,” Andrew answers for Kevin, who seems petrified. “He would not.”

“Ah,” Ichirou says. “I heard you have a watchdog these days. A fearless man, they say.” A smile carves itself onto his face without reaching his dead eyes and his raven gives another caw, fluttering its wings. Andrew holds his gaze and pushes Kevin further behind him, shielding him with his body.

“Funny thing, fear,” Ichirou muses. “I do not believe in fearless men, you see.”

“Neither do I,” Andrew says, slips a knife from his armband and throws.

It hits one of the goons in the throat and he goes down with a gurgle. Dan dives for her gun and takes out the other one before he can shoot, but more men start pouring into the apartment and Andrew yanks Kevin down, using the coffee table as a shield.

“Fire escape!” Dan yells as glass shatters, and the three of them launch themselves at the broken window. A bullet hits Kevin’s shoulder but it only leaves a dent in his prosthetic. Another grazes Andrew’s leg, doing a little more damage, but there’s no time to stop and check. They hurtle down the slippery, frozen fire escape in the dark with the coffee table held over their heads. Kevin, at least, seems to have thawed out of his shock and is cursing loudly and shooting behind them until his magazine is empty to keep Ichirou’s men from catching up. They hit the ground running. Kevin hurls his empty gun at one of their pursuers and hits him square in the face. Dan finally manages to pull one of Allison’s explosives out of her coat and throws it behind them. It goes off with a deafening bang, taking several men, half the fire escape and some of the brick with it.

They make it around a corner before something descends on them from above with a screech. Dan cries out as Ichirou’s raven claws at her neck. Andrew throws another knife at it and the blasted bird takes off again, showering them in smooth black feathers, but the distraction has cost them valuable seconds–

“Stop right there!”

Jean slithers out of an alley, gun raised. Kevin and Andrew skid to a stop, but there’s no way out other than forward or back where they came from. Andrew lost his gun in the apartment and his frozen fingers are fumbling with his knives a moment too long, and then Ichirou is right there with a katana that rivals Renee’s.

“Dan,” Andrew pants, his leg throbbing where the bullet tore it open, “get Kevin out of here.”

Dan looks like she’s about to protest and Andrew yells, “Now!” before hurling a knife at Ichirou. He deflects it with his katana and Andrew pulls out his last two blades and advances. Out of the corner of his eye he sees Dan grab Kevin and pull him back. Jean aims for them and Dan shoots at him while she runs, forcing him to dive for cover behind a dumpster. Andrew keeps his attention on them long enough to make sure that Dan and Kevin get out of range, but he has his hands full dodging Ichirou’s singing katana. He manages to slice open Ichirou’s coat sleeve, a thin spatter of blood soaking the fabric, and the next moment Ichirou has him pinned against the wall with the blade of the katana poised at his throat.

“I remember now,” Ichirou murmurs, not even a little bit out of breath. “Andrew Minyard, was it? Caused a bit of a stir when you refused our hospitality at Easthaven, destroyed valuable equipment and stole one of our ships. No, not a fearless man at all, I think.”

He lowers his katana, and then Jean steps out from behind the dumpster and shoots him.

*

He wakes in a white room. For once, the memories that his left eye sees fuse seamlessly with the reality that his right eye sees. He aches all over and his limbs are too heavy to move – a tranquiliser gun, he thinks. What a laugh.

It would have been kinder to shoot him with an actual gun.

*

The second time he can gather enough of his wits about him to open his eyes there’s a nurse by his bed. His hands and feet are strapped down, his armbands are gone. Machines beep.

_Not a fearless man at all_.

His breath goes so fast it feels like it’s going to rip his throat apart. His chest hurts, his brain feels scrambled inside his skull, the endless archives of his perfect memory are in uncommon disarray. He can’t remember a voice, an important one, _the_ voice, the one that taught him how to breathe again after the first time – _mom_ – no, Bee – not a mother, he never had one of those.

The machines are shrieking.

The nurse adjusts his IV.

He can’t tell if he’s dreaming or awake anymore. Everything is strange and out of focus, everything is white and everything is green. Aaron is there, frowning down at the exposed scars on his arms.

_It’s for the best, Andrew,_ he says.

_You’re safe here, Andrew,_ Nicky says.

“Dr. Proust will be with you in a minute,” the nurse says.

*

“Andrew. Andrew, wake up. Fuck. Renee, he’s not responding. What do I do?”

Andrew’s body moves before he’s fully conscious. There’s a crash and a yelp and then his fist connects with someone’s jaw and his other hand closes around a throat and squeezes hard.

The body goes lax under him and the bloody fog clears from Andrew’s mind.

“Neil,” he croaks. Neil taps his hand where it’s still around his throat, making a little choking sound, and Andrew scrambles off him, sways on his feet and falls backward onto hard tiled floor, breathing hard.

“Renee?” Neil coughs, touching an earpiece. “Nevermind. He’s awake.”

Andrew trembles violently and looks around himself. Several bodies are strewn across the room in pools of blood. The leather restraints are still tied around his wrists and ankles but someone’s cut the straps, turning him into a puppet with loose strings. He’s dressed in a white hospital shift and all of his knives are gone. Screens shiver and flicker and there’s Neil, crouched a safe distance away with his hands up, palms out, his clothes soaked in blood.

“Andrew,” he says, “it’s me. I’m getting you out of here, okay?”

Andrew wants to say things, but the words melt away in his brain and his throat only makes a dry clicking noise when he tries. Neil slowly lowers a hand and slides a knife over to him, facing hilt forward. Andrew wraps his fingers around it until his knuckles are whiter than the tile.

“Can you walk?”

He nods, even though he’s not really sure. He pulls himself up on the bed and doubles over, dry retching, until a glass of water appears in his field of vision. He eyes it warily.

“It’s clean, I checked,” Neil says, his voice hard and brittle. “We need to get out of here, Andrew.”

Andrew takes a careful sip of the water, then another. His wrists and ankles are bloody and sore from struggling against the restraints and his legs are shaking badly, but there’s still a knife in his hand and Neil is here with Proust’s dead body lying at his feet. He looks old and bloated in death, vicious slashes across his face and throat like a child’s painting. One of his wrists is broken, the fingers all plucked apart at different angles. It looks like it was painful.

Good.

“He died too quickly,” Neil says coldly, reading his thoughts. “I was in a bit of a hurry.”

Andrew cuts the restraints off himself, finds a blanket and wraps it around his shoulders, still holding on to the knife, then follows Neil out of the room.

The corridor is dark and deserted, only a few green emergency lights on at regular intervals. They pass more bodies. Andrew’s bare feet are slick with blood. Neil occasionally murmurs something into his earpiece and leads them through the maze of Easthaven’s inner sanctuary, gun held out in front of him with a silencer on, several knives and some explosives in his belt.

“Kevin?” Andrew manages to ask after a while. Neil stops and opens a door seemingly at random, pulling a small bag out of the broom closet behind it.

“Dan got him back to the _Bebop_ ,” he says. “They were a bit scraped up but nothing Abby couldn’t fix. Here.”

He hands him a bundle of clothes, a pair of Renee’s boots, a juice pack and a gun, then turns to reload his own, giving Andrew enough privacy to get changed. Andrew pulls on the pants and tears the shift off, instantly feeling better wearing his own clothes. There’s even a pack of cigarettes in his pocket and a spare pair of armbands. He drains the juice pack, takes the knife in one hand and the gun in the other, and they ascend the stairs together, listening carefully for any sort of alarm, but everything stays quiet.

Looks like Neil’s been thorough.

“Which room?” Neil says into the earpiece. “Got it. Andrew? Can you hold out just a little longer? There’s one last thing I want to get done.”

Andrew nods and they creep down another corridor. Neil finds the door he was looking for and opens it. Beyond it lies a long room with a few dozen beds hooked up to machines. Their occupants all seem to be alive, but only barely.

“Over here,” Neil says, stopping in front of a bed. It takes Andrew a moment to recognise the young man inside it. Being in a coma has distorted his features and sucked the life out of them to the point where he looks just like any of the other patients in the room.

“Riko,” Andrew mumbles.

“Yeah,” Neil says. “Everyone thought he was dead, but it turns out the Moriyamas dumped him here, hidden away from the public. None of these patients ever get visitors anymore, they’re just vegetables. Riko, however…”

He steps to the monitors beside Riko’s bed and clicks his tongue.

“Knew it,” he says. “He’s still connected to a network. Remember the cult guy Renee and I were after? Kevin King?”

He types something on one of the screens and a monitor flashes. The face of Kevin King appears, looking blank and wide-eyed.

“What are you doing?” King asks warily.

Neil sneers. “Unplugging you.”

“No! You can’t do this!” King cries, his features blurring.

“Yep, I can. Bye bye,” Neil says, pulling several wires out. The screen goes abruptly black, and Andrew looks back at Riko’s sleeping form.

“Kevin King was never real,” Neil says. “He was a virtual identity that Riko’s brain crafted for itself. Like a dream that he was dreaming, projected into the real world. It allowed him to build his cult and brainwash and control all these people, even driving some of them to suicide. I’m afraid we won’t get the bounty for him now, but at least the demon’s exorcised.”

Andrew lifts his gun and shoots, once.

“ _Now_ he is,” he says, watching the blood sprawl over Riko’s chest as the heart monitor flatlines.

*

Getting out of Easthaven is almost suspiciously easy after that. There is less staff around than Andrew remembers, doors that should be alarmed aren’t, and the hangar is empty save for a few dozen ships. Neil seems to have borrowed Matt’s cruiser – Andrew doesn’t know what happened to the _Foxface_ , but if it got left behind on Callisto, there’s a good chance it will have been stripped for parts and left to rust in the snow by now.

They take off, Andrew curled up in his blanket, still clinging to his knife. Neil hands him a chocolate bar, a giant thing oozing with caramel and studded with peanuts, and he chews slowly, watching as Easthaven Laboratories shrinks away beneath them. He imagines the whole thing going up in flames, but Matt’s cruiser doesn’t have the firepower for that.

Maybe another day, he’ll come back to finish the job.

“Hey,” Neil says. “Are you okay?”

“I thought we had a deal,” Andrew mumbles, shoving the last piece of his chocolate bar in his mouth.

“We had a deal that I wouldn’t come to Callisto with you. There was never any word that I’d stay put and twiddle my thumbs if you got kidnapped by the Syndicate so they could go back to using you as a lab rat,” Neil spits, looking livid. It’s only then that Andrew notices – really notices – that his hair is auburn, a deep, malty colour with copper accents, highlighting his freckles and his eerie blue eyes. He looks real now, real and unreal at the same time, silhouetted against a backdrop of stars.

“You dyed your hair.”

“Yes.”

Andrew reaches out and catches a curl between two fingers, tugging slightly. It springs back when he lets go and Neil turns his head quickly and manages to press a little kiss to his fingertips.

“Gross,” Andrew complains, leaning his cheek against the cool window to get rid of the itchy hot feeling just under his skin.

“If you say so,” Neil smirks.

Something beeps on the radar and Neil frowns, tapping the screen. Then there’s a _thump_ on the outside of the cruiser, and a few seconds later everything goes dark. Neil curses loudly.

“What is it?” Andrew asks.

Neil opens his mouth to answer but is cut off by a familiar voice coming over their comm system.

“Junior!” Lola Malcolm sings. “How good of you to come. Your father will be so pleased.”

[ ](https://www.flickr.com/photos/143876612@N03/44445277081/in/album-72157695091145580/)

*

The headquarters of the Red Dragon Syndicate are bigger than Easthaven and all its outposts put together. Andrew and Neil are thoroughly patted down for weapons, handcuffed and escorted inside one of the buildings with several guns pointed at them at all times. Lola saunters ahead, humming a little melody that sounds like dripping blood and spinning a knife in her hand. Occasionally she doubles back so she can croon disturbing things in Neil’s ear or twirl her knife close enough to Andrew’s face that Neil twitches.

“Don’t worry, we’ll have some fun before daddy gets here,” Lola taunts. “The big boss will want a word with you, too, Nathaniel. We’ll have to make sure you have enough limbs left to kneel before him. This one, though… I’ll enjoy carving him up while you watch.”

Neil’s breathing is shallow, but he has enough wits about him to step hard on Lola’s foot the second she strays a little too close to Andrew. She hisses and rams her elbow into his face. He stumbles back, blood spurting from his nose, and one of the guards pulls him back on his feet and pushes him forward.

“Naughty,” Lola tuts. “It seems you’ve forgotten all your manners, Junior. The bitch was always far too lenient with you. No matter, we’ll teach you again soon enough.”

Neil spits blood in her direction and bares his teeth. They turn a corner and walk into a room that’s bare except for a drain in the floor and a single chair. Lola sits backwards on the chair and motions for the men to release Andrew. He gets a kick in the back and falls forward, unable to soften the impact with his hands. Still – at least now he can get at the tiny piece of metal attached to his boot laces without Lola seeing. He makes a mental note to thank Renee again for that little trick.

“No! _No_! Let him go! You wanted _me_ , not him, I’m right here–”

There’s another sickening crunch as the barrel of a gun collides with Neil’s face, then the sound of a furious scuffle breaking out. Andrew pushes himself up on his knees, trying to see what’s going on behind him, but Lola grabs his face and holds it in place. She digs her nails in and turns him this way and that as she studies him.

“Very handsome,” is her verdict. “Didn’t think Junior had it in him, to be honest. Does he fuck you or do you fuck him?”

“Does the Butcher fuck you or do you fuck him?” Andrew shoots back. Lola’s eyes widen in surprise, then she throws her head back and laughs.

“I do like it when they get sassy,” she croons. “I like it more when they start begging, but that’s all the fun, isn’t it? Getting from point A to point B.”

“Are we still talking about fucking?” Andrew says.

“Hmm,” Lola smirks, tracing some kind of pattern on Andrew’s cheek with the tip of her knife, enough for it to sting. “Shame you’re not my type, really.”

Someone gives a sharp cry somewhere off to the side and Lola’s eyes flicker briefly toward the distraction. It’s enough time for Andrew to finish picking the lock on his handcuffs. The noise of the scuffle covers the soft click of the cuffs opening and he catches them in one hand before they can clatter to the floor. Then he quickly brings his other up to grab the gun from Lola’s holster, press it to her stomach and shoot, just as she’s about to start talking again.

The expression on her face is one of surprise. She sucks in a wet, gurgling breath and the knife clatters from her grip. Andrew scoops it up, wincing at the pain in his wrist from the unfamiliar kickback of the gun. He grits his teeth and shoots the two men that are merrily beating up Neil in quick succession and throws the knife at the third one when he hesitates a second too long.

“Took you long enough,” Neil pants, his breath ragged. “Is she dead?”

Andrew pulls him up off the floor and makes quick work of his handcuffs. Blood is dripping down Neil’s face and he flinches at every movement, but he doesn’t hesitate to grab weapons off the dead men – just in time, too, as the door flies open and guards rush in.

Now that the door is open, they can hear gunfire and screams coming from another part of the building. Neil and Andrew fight their way through their opponents side by side, Neil laying down cover fire while Andrew makes use of some of Renee’s nastier moves, and when they reach a staircase, they duck behind the doorway and listen.

A body crashes down from one of the upper floors, spilling brains across the red carpet.

“The fuck,” Neil mutters thickly. His nose is bloody and swollen; he has a split lip and he’s squinting through one eye. The hand on his gun shakes slightly.

“Not just a normal day at the Syndicate, then?” Andrew checks, nodding at the poor bastard dashed to pieces on the floor. More gunfire sounds from above and below and Neil coughs and spits out blood.

“No,” he says tiredly. “I don’t know what’s going on. Either way, we should get out of here.”

“Leaving so soon, Nathaniel?”

The voice doesn’t sound like anything special, but it has an instant effect on Neil. The gun slips out of his hands and hits the ground, letting off a single shot that propels it into the wall, the bullet lodging itself deep in a nearby tapestry. A white man steps out of the shadows, looking casual in his shirtsleeves, hands in his pockets and feet bare. His hair and eyes are the same shade as Neil’s, a little greyer, perhaps; but Neil must have everything else from his mother, because the Butcher is built like a tank, not at all lean and wiry like his son. His bodyguard, a man Andrew recognises as Patrick DiMaccio, is holding two hefty cleavers ready for him.

“Nothing?” Wesninski says, tilting his head from side to side like he’s weighing it. “Did I not teach you how to properly greet your father? Maybe the lesson hasn’t quite sunk in.”

“You taught me nothing,” Neil forces out through gritted teeth. The gunfire in the staircase sounds closer now. Andrew only has two small daggers left and he’s feeling more and more unsteady on his legs, still weak from the drugs they pumped into him at Easthaven and the more recent blood loss. Neil’s gun is several feet away. Neil himself is favouring his left side, and his face looks more and more like it’s made intimate acquaintance with a sledgehammer.

Wesninski turns slightly and DiMaccio puts one of the cleavers in his hand. Andrew doesn’t wait until he’s adjusted his grip on it and charges, both of his daggers held in his hands. He gets one good hit in, driving the dagger into Wesninski’s side, but it’s too small to really do any crucial damage, and Wesninski merely grunts and hits him with the blunt side of the cleaver, hard enough to make him black out for a second.

When he comes to, Wesninski is sitting on his chest, knees pressing down his arms, a deadweight with a deathly sharp blade balanced almost casually on the bridge of Andrew’s nose. Neil must have dived for his gun because next thing he knows there’s a shot, but it ricochets uselessly off the wall, Neil’s hands trembling too much to aim properly.

“Patrick,” Wesninski says, bored.

DiMaccio steps over them with the second cleaver and Wesninski looks back down at Andrew like he can’t quite decide how best to kill him. The blade is a hair’s breadth away from Andrew’s eyes. He can feel his lashes brush against it every time he blinks.

Somewhere behind him, Neil screams.

Andrew takes a deep breath, bends his knees and puts all of his strength in a sideways buck and roll of his body, yanking his arms up at the same time. He manages to throw off Wesninski’s balance enough that he can start kicking and punching himself free, driving the dagger again and again into any body part he can reach. Something wet and warm runs down his face. For a moment he thinks he’s crying, but then he realises that his left eye has abruptly gone dark on the memory of a face that might have been Drake’s, might have been Proust’s, might have been one of so many others that came before.

Wesninski catches his wrist and squeezes hard enough that Andrew cries out and drops the dagger. Then he lifts his cleaver again, ready to split Andrew’s skull in half like it’s no more than a log of firewood. Andrew’s body thrashes in his grip but it’s too tight. He braces himself for the impact, and then there’s a yell and a _crunk_ and a small, anticlimactic _shhkt_ and Wesninski’s cleaver drops to the floor with his hand still attached, spurting blood.

Wesninski stares at the stump of his arm in shock and doesn’t even have time to scream before Neil swings the second cleaver back and hacks at his neck with a desperate, wheezing sob. It takes several clumsy hits until the life drains out of Wesninski’s steel blue eyes for good, and still Neil keeps swinging, shaking so hard that he misses more often than not.

“Neil,” Andrew says, leaning against the wall and holding a hand over his broken left eye. “Neil, stop.”

The cleaver clatters to the floor and skids in the rapidly spreading pool of blood between Wesninski and DiMaccio. Neil falls to his knees and grabs his hair in both hands, pulling hard and making low, tortured moans. There’s still sounds of fighting elsewhere in the house but they’ve died down now. Andrew wants to reach out and touch Neil, tug him close and wrap him up, wipe the blood and tears from his face and never let him go. He doesn’t think that’s a good idea just now, but he keeps it in the back of his mind for later, when they’ve left this slaughterhouse behind.

“Nathaniel?” someone says and Neil laughs hysterically at the name. The man standing at the other end of the corridor looks vaguely familiar. He’s dressed in a grey suit and holding a lowered gun, and his eyes are wide as he takes in the scene. “Bloody hell.”

“Stuart,” Neil whispers, a broken thing of a word.

“You killed him?” Stuart asks, slowly inching closer. Another violent laugh wracks Neil’s body and he nods, only glancing briefly at the mess in front of him.

“Good,” Stuart says grimly. “I got a call from Kevin Day. I think we need to talk.”

*

A young man with a brittle smile and capable hands that reminds Andrew of Aaron patches them both up on Stuart’s ship. Andrew gets a thick bandage over his left eye and doesn’t listen when the man tells him that he might be able to get reconstructive surgery. He watches Neil instead, who is holding an ice pack to his face and staring at the wall, his eyes limned in bruises so dark they look black. Andrew lets his hand creep over to his and taps his finger like a question. It takes a moment for Neil to react, then he hooks their pinkies together.

Stuart brings them a thermos of strong, boozy tea and a few bags of snacks and stale sandwiches. Neil drinks his tea but doesn’t touch the food until Andrew drops an unwrapped protein bar in his lap.

“…so we might be able to strike a deal if we use the material Day has obtained as leverage,” Stuart is saying. Andrew’s attention is much more drawn to the cigarette case that he’s taken out of his pocket and Stuart offers him one, recognising a fellow addict.

“Wait,” Neil croaks, frowning down at his half-eaten protein bar. “I thought Jean only had one copy that got destroyed.”

“Apparently not,” Stuart says, lighting Andrew’s cigarette for him. “Day told me he was able to get through to him somehow after you two were taken captive. Quite a formidable crew you have there… Anyway, your Miss Walker managed to track me down and explain the situation. I knew it was the best chance at revenge that I’d get, not to mention I’ve been trying to find you ever since I heard of my sister’s death. You’re bloody hard to find, you know that?”

His lips twitch and curl into a wry skeleton of a smile. He turns to Andrew and adds: “I’m his uncle, in case that wasn’t clear. The Hatford empire is nowhere near as big as it once was, but with the information Day gave us, we finally have the necessary incentive for the Moriyamas to renegotiate territories with us.”

“What about the _Bebop_?” Neil asks hoarsely. Stuart hums and taps his fingers against his thigh.

“I suppose we can barter for a sort of – amnesty,” he muses. “It might sweeten the deal if we could throw in that key of your mother’s, though.”

“Fine,” Neil says, “I don’t care. Ichirou can have it.”

Stuart looks satisfied and gets up, then hesitates.

“Nathaniel…”

“It’s Neil now,” Neil mutters.

“Neil,” Stuart says and clears his throat. “You know you’ll always have a home with me if you wanted to…”

“Thanks, but no thanks,” Neil says coolly. “I’ll get the key to you as soon as Ichirou agrees to the deal.”

“Is there anything you need, then?” Stuart offers. “A ship? Money? Anything at all?”

“No.”

“Actually,” Andrew says, “we _could_ use some money. Consider it a donation to the _Bebop_ , for the trouble of taking you in.”

Neil pokes him with his elbow and Andrew pokes back. Finally, the blankness on Neil’s face gives way to something more alive.

“Well, alright,” Neil sighs. “Send it to Wymack, he can divide it up among the crew. And I kind of owe Matt a new cruiser, unless you picked his old one up from Evermore.”

“That’s settled then,” Stuart says. “Feel free to stay here as long as you like, get some rest. I’ll have my cook prepare a proper meal for you later.”

Andrew catches Neil’s gaze and knows that they’ll find the nearest hangar as soon as Stuart’s back is turned and get the hell out. Andrew nods imperceptibly and Neil’s finger tightens minutely around his.

Time to go home.

*

When they get back to the _Bebop_ , Kevin unexpectedly hugs Neil.

It’s stiff and awkward and Neil quickly wriggles out of it. Kevin must be really shaken up, because he tries Andrew next. Andrew waits passively until he’s close and then steps to the side at the last moment, smothering his amusement in a cough when Kevin walks straight into the wall with open arms.

Serves him right for thinking even for a second that Andrew would let him.

Dan curses loudly when she sees the state they’re in. Matt, too, insists on gathering Neil up in a careful hug, though he’s wise enough to leave Andrew alone. Wymack, Allison and Seth keep their space, and Renee comes over to Andrew and looks him over with a hard expression that soon crumbles into chalky softness.

“Welcome back,” she says quietly. Andrew nods, and when Abby insists on checking them over even though Stuart’s doctor already patched them up, Andrew takes it as an opportunity to steer Neil away from the others and their demanding limbs and curious eyes.

They encounter Jean in the infirmary, in very bad shape but awake. He tracks their movements with his swollen eyes but doesn’t say anything. Abby meticulously changes all their bandages, including the one on Andrew’s busted eye, then forces juice packs and crackers on them and sends them off to sleep in their own rooms. Andrew doesn’t feel quite ready to let Neil out of his sight again, and Neil, too, hesitates when they reach Andrew’s quarters.

“Some rescue mission, huh? Talk about out of the fire, into the frying pan,” he says softly. “I’m sorry about your eye.”

He lifts his hand as if to touch the bandage over Andrew’s eye but stops before he reaches it. Andrew shrugs lightly.

“Never liked that one anyway.”

Neil snorts and lowers his hand. Andrew turns and opens his door, then looks over his shoulder and raises his eyebrows at Neil in question.

“Is that supposed to be an invitation?” Neil smiles.

“One that expires in five seconds if you don’t take it,” Andrew mutters, aiming for his bed. His body feels like one big bruise. He hears the door snick shut behind him, kicks off his boots and rolls onto his side on the bed.

“Mind if I join you?” Neil whispers. Andrew grunts and pulls the sheets over himself.

He falls asleep before Neil has even finished toeing off his shoes.

*

When they finally re-emerge from a good long sleep and a careful shower, the lounge is in minor uproar. _Big Shot_ is on in the background and Dan and Matt are jumping up and down yelling and laughing. Seth is loudly fantasising about going on a trip and staying at the most expensive hotel he can find. Allison and Renee are singing some sort of power ballad, and Kevin is busy making a complete ass of himself in front of some guests. Andrew recognises Thea, the Heavy Metal Queen, and Wymack informs them that the others are friends of Thea’s called Jeremy, Laila and Alvarez, space truckers working for the Trojans company. Apparently they’ve come to talk about taking Jean off their hands. Kevin seems to have a crush on both Thea and Jeremy and keeps spewing inane drivel, but they have the grace to humour him.

“Is this why everyone is celebrating?” Neil wants to know.

“No,” Wymack says, “that would be the anonymous donation that we received this morning. You wouldn’t happen to know anything about that, would you?”

“Nope,” Neil grins. “No idea.”

Wymack grunts, then reaches out and ruffles Neil’s hair.

“Welcome back, kiddo. Thought I’d lost you both for good.”

Andrew watches as Jeremy slings an arm around Kevin on the other side of the room and Kevin nearly goes catatonic with flustered delight. He looks at Dan and Matt, celebrating because they now have enough money to start looking for a place to settle down. Next to them are Renee and Allison, already talking about their next bounty hunt. Seth is planning his vacation, and Abby is putting in an order for new medical equipment.

“Actually,” Andrew says, “we won’t stay long.”

“We won’t?” Neil says at the same time as Wymack asks, “No?”

“Still have to get my ship fixed,” Andrew reminds them. “And then I think I’m overdue a holiday. Neil?”

“Yes,” Neil says without even asking where Andrew wants to go. “When are we leaving?”

“Couple of days,” Andrew shrugs, looking Neil over and trying to calculate how long it’s going to take for the worst of his injuries to heal. Wymack mimics Andrew’s earlier sweeping glance of the room and squints at them for a moment before nodding.

“Request granted,” he grunts. “Not that you ever ask for permission, you little shit.”

Matt comes over to inform them that they’re going to have a little celebratory feast tonight and ask if they have any suggestions before he and Seth go grocery shopping. Neil apologises for losing his ship and tells him to keep the shiny new cruiser in the hangar that they “borrowed” from Stuart. Seth is still pissed that his own racer isn’t fixed yet but not so pissed he’ll turn down a ride, especially if they’re stopping by an actual butcher on the nearest moon. Andrew tells Matt to pick up more cigarettes since sharing his ration with Neil has made them deplete faster. Neil asks for fresh fruit before Renee draws him away from the group to speak to him privately, and Allison suddenly appears next to Andrew, looking calculating.

“Never thought I’d say this, but I’m kinda glad to see you’re not dead, monster. Captain almost killed one of his bonsai trees, he was that worried. Are you aware that Renee is shovel-talking your boyfriend right now?”

Andrew’s eyes flicker over to the doorway where he can just about see the ends of Renee’s freshly dyed, luminous hair. He turns back to Allison.

“How did the last race turn out?” he asks casually. Allison’s eyes spark at the implications – they haven’t mentioned the horse races since the last incident.

“Not great,” she sighs. “Shiitake Princess came in third. That’s the second time I’ve lost money on her now, I think I need a new favourite.”

“Try the dog races,” Andrew advises her. Allison snorts and twirls a strand of hair around her finger.

“I got some new explosives. Wanna team up for the next hunt?”

“Not this time,” Andrew says, tracing the almost empty cigarette packet in his pocket. “Ask me again, though.”

Allison nods, satisfied with that answer, and slinks off to flirt with Thea, who seems robustly immune to Allison’s smoky charm and more interested in lovingly insulting Kevin. Renee appears to be done with Neil, because he comes back in and makes a beeline straight for Andrew, looking vaguely traumatised and muttering something about terrifying women with katanas under his breath.

Thea and her crew leave with Jean in tow and things start to calm down again. Andrew takes another nap before dinner while Neil gets roped into helping Abby, Matt and Dan in the kitchen. The food is better than anything they’ve had in a long while, including a big pan of bell peppers and beef with actual beef but no peppers this time, much to everyone’s amusement. Renee tops the whole thing off with sweet dumplings filled with fruit and an abundance of chocolate sauce. Once they’re all stuffed to the gills and unable to move, she sneakily proposes a game of Ligretto, where Neil proceeds to clean them all out mercilessly with his speed and affinity for numbers.

Andrew’s never liked numbers very much, but he sips at a glass of whisky and enjoys the intense showdown between Neil, Renee and Dan. Both Allison and Matt grudgingly hand over their money to Andrew when Neil wins, and then Allison declares that he’s earned himself a prize and disappears for a moment, returning with a bottle of very potent gin and a balled-up t-shirt that she throws at Neil.

He unrolls it and stares at the print, then folds it up with a grin and takes a glass from Allison, toasting her with it before he drinks.

“Put it on, then,” Allison demands, pouring him another. Neil pushes his glass over to Andrew and contemplates the t-shirt in his lap before tugging it over his head.

“Nice,” Allison hums. Matt promptly dissolves into giggles and Dan hides a smirk in her sleeve.

“What do you think?” Neil asks, turning to Andrew and tugging at the fabric to show off the print of a horse and a blond cowboy, captioned ‘Save a horse, ride a cowboy’.

Andrew wordlessly downs his gin and holds the glass out for another. He doesn’t even fucking like gin.

*

Somehow, miraculously, Dan manages to retrieve what’s left of Neil’s _Foxface_ from Callisto, because she’s in a good mood about their current financial situation and the fact that they get to keep Neil without having to worry about any mob bosses. Neil is able to replace most of the looted parts and patch it up enough that it can tow Andrew to Bee’s workshop on Europa. He also finally overhauls Seth’s old clunker before they leave – it looks good as new and Seth grudgingly accepts that Neil’s going to be a part of the crew from now on whether he likes it or not.

“I added a tiny bug,” Neil confesses to Andrew in the privacy of Andrew’s room that night, hiding a mischievous smile in the crook of Andrew’s neck. “Nothing dangerous or anything, just the noise of a fly buzzing around in his cockpit every now and then, to annoy him. A literal bug, if you will.”

He laughs at his own joke and Andrew kisses the smugness off his lips and goes about the delicate task of extricating Neil from his stupid cowboy t-shirt. Neither of them has brought up the topic of sex again, but Andrew has learned that Neil doesn’t mind being shirtless with him so long as Andrew is shirtless as well. He also likes being touched so long as it’s Andrew doing the touching, which works well for both of them.

“I have a gift for you,” Neil says once he’s considerably less clothed and suitably more dishevelled. Andrew is reluctant to remove his hands from where they’re wreaking happy havoc in Neil’s hair, but Neil manages to squirm out from underneath him and grab his jeans in the dark to slip something out of a pocket.

He puts it into Andrew’s hand. It’s a simple poker chip, engraved with the Eden’s Twilight logo.

“I made a copy of the decrypting key,” Neil tells him, ghosting his fingers over the chip. “Might come in handy. Also, the one I gave to the Moriyamas has a virtually undetectable virus on it that’s going to render the programme and any copies unusable in a few months. Oops, my bad.”

Andrew holds the chip up and squints at it. Neil is sucking on his lower lip, looking nervous for some reason, like he isn’t sure how Andrew is going to react to being given a key that unlocks every door in the universe.

He puts the chip on his bedside table and pushes Neil down with heavy hands. Their next kiss is gentle, dizzying and soft; Andrew tries to convey something with it that he can’t put into words just yet.

Neil smiles against his mouth and hooks one leg around Andrew’s, understanding perfectly.

*

“Want one?”

Andrew looks up from where he’s scuffing his dusty boots against the equally dusty ground and accepts a cigarette from Bee. She lights another one for herself and leans against the wall next to him, watching the smoke. The horizon is the bright, electric, sugary orange of a juice pack, sticky in the heat, but the air is already starting to cool for the night.

“He’s a smart kid, your boy,” Bee says, mopping at her forehead with a handkerchief. Her hair is completely grey now, tight corkscrew curls looking wiry in the dimming light. “I could use an extra pair of hands in the shop, but I assume that’s not why you brought him here.”

“No,” Andrew admits. He brought him here because – he doesn’t know why. Because Neil’s already met the rest of his family, might as well get it all over with and introduce him to the last and most important member of it.

“Shame,” Bee teases, coughing a little. “I like that girl you dumped on me last time, Robin. I don’t want her to be stuck in this ramshackle old shop forever, though.”

“Have you asked her what she wants?”

“Don’t I always?” Bee smiles. “She says the only other thing she wants to do is bounty hunting.”

They watch the light thin out like paint being diluted and finish their cigarettes, and then Bee shivers and wraps her cardigan around herself and Andrew leads them back inside to make her a cup of tea. The sight of Neil still elbow-deep in his ship sends an odd shiver down his spine that still simmers somewhere in the small of his back even when he leaves the workshop and makes for the kitchen.

He fills the kettle with water and puts it on the old gas stove, idly inspecting Bee’s wall of pictures while the water boils. The ones of him are still there, all thirteen of them, and it shakes something loose in him that tastes clean and fresh like relief. Many lost souls pass through Bee’s shop on their meandering journeys, and each one gets a spot on the picture wall, no matter how long ago or how brief their stay. If Andrew dies, these thirteen pictures of him will still be here.

One of his hands comes up reflexively to cover his left eye and he winces when it prods at healing skin instead. There’s only scar tissue now where the memories used to crowd each other out. Sometimes it still throws him off; most days it’s like waking up from a never-ending dream.

The kettle whistles and spews steam. Andrew fills Bee’s favourite teapot – a big, bulky one painted with a honeycomb pattern – and scoops tea leaves from a dented tin. Their fragrant scent is the closest Andrew can imagine to the feeling of returning to a happy childhood home and he inhales deeply as he waits for the tea to brew. When it’s done, he grabs three mugs, pours the tea and spoons in some of the rock sugar marinated in rum that Bee always keeps on her top shelf before covering the pot in a knitted tea cosy and taking the mugs outside into the shop.

He can hear the muted voices of Bee and Neil talking. Her other apprentices have finished their shifts and Robin’s gone back to the house to get dinner started and look after the ancient cat Bee adopted after the last time Andrew came here. He rounds the corner and sees Bee laughing, wiping a tear of mirth from her eye, while Neil still looks a little awkward but can’t quite stifle a grin of his own.

“What are you two gossiping about?” Andrew demands, handing out the tea. Bee just shakes her head, chuckling – he remembers the little sigh she always makes after a good laugh, and it’s so familiar it _hurts_ – and Neil takes a hasty sip of his tea instead of answering.

“Will you be staying overnight, Andrew?” Bee wants to know, wrapping her hands around the cogwheel print mug with a fond smile. “Janie’s moved on to town, so you could have your old room back.”

“How long is it going to take for the parts to arrive?” Neil asks.

“Couple of days, maybe a week. There’s only a few people left who sell these things. You’re welcome to stay, of course.”

Andrew taps his fingers against the rim of his mug and looks around the workshop.

“Do you have any cars?”

“Do I have any cars,” Bee scoffs. “There’s a Maserati with your name on it out back. I fixed it up myself. Or you could borrow my old Harley again if you fancy it.”

“Tempting,” Andrew hums. “Show me the car.”

Bee takes them to an open garage around the back of the workshop and pulls the dust sheet off the Maserati in question, giving him a rundown of its specs. Neil wanders around the yard and finds a few stray cats that he promptly charms into submission. Bats zoom around in the twilight, crickets chirp and the air smells like exhaust fumes and desert wind, and Andrew runs his fingers over the smooth, gleaming black paint of the car and feels at peace.

“We will stay the night,” Andrew decides, “and leave early tomorrow morning.”

Bee nods and pulls a crumpled roadmap out of the front pocket of her dungarees that Andrew tucks into the glove compartment of the Maserati. They finish their tea, watching Neil crawl on his hands and feet after a particularly skittish cat that seems to thoroughly enjoy staying always just out of reach. Then Robin calls them to the house for dinner and Andrew helps Bee lock up the shop for the night.

Bee lights candles in dirty glass jars, Robin brings her guitar outside after they’ve cleared the table, and one of the stray cats has curled up in Neil’s lap, complaining vocally every time he stops scratching its chin. Bee’s other ward – a very old, half blind creature with a razor-sharp spine and skinny, knobbly legs – has also settled close to him, purring breathily. Neil conjures up the harmonica Matt gave him and requests that Andrew play.

“You owe me a song, cowboy, I dyed my hair back for you and now half my clothes clash horribly with it.”

“Like you care about that.”

Andrew rolls his eyes but plays one anyway, and Robin joins in with her guitar after she gets the hang of it.

Bee applauds when they’re done, wrapped in a poncho against the cold that’s creeping in. Robin grins, brief and bright like a spark in the dark, and Andrew makes a sarcastic little mock bow and tosses the harmonica back to Neil.

“That was a fun song,” Neil says. “What’s it called?”

“ _Digging My Potato_ ,” Andrew says, deadpan. There’s a pause where Neil stares at him, and then suddenly he’s laughing, loud and rough and raucous, a sound that shouldn’t suit his small frame at all but somehow does. It’s so mighty and ridiculous that it shakes his whole body and pushes tears out of his eyes, dislodging the cat in his lap, and Andrew can only watch helplessly and _feel_.

“I hate you,” he informs Neil when the worst of it has subsided to a trickle of thin, exhausted giggles, like aftershocks. Neil is holding his stomach and his face is flushed a pretty pink that Andrew can only imagine too well in other situations.

“That means he likes you,” Robin grins cheekily, her brown skin painted gold in the flickering light of the candles. She looks like a teenage version of Bee.

“I think it means he hates me _because_ he likes me,” Neil says, squirming away when Andrew prods his side hard. Bee stops the situation from escalating by suggesting a night cap inside, and soon after they all head to their rooms to get ready for the night.

“How long did you stay here?” Neil asks, looking around the small bedroom with the slanted ceiling that used to be Andrew’s. It’s clean and tidy, empty of personal possessions since its last occupant moved out. Nonetheless, there are signs of Andrew’s presence if you know where to look – the scorch marks on the window sill from insomniac cigarettes, the spot by the bed where he used to peel the wallpaper off, a small gouge in the wood of the dresser from a bored knife. They may be marks of destruction, but they are still Andrew’s; still proof of his existence.

“A few years,” Andrew says. “After Easthaven. I crash-landed the ship I stole out in the desert. Bee found me.”

Found him and put him back together. Helped him through withdrawal and nightmares and panic attacks, gave him a job and a home and something small to live for every day.

Neil sits on the bed and bounces a little, testing the mattress. It’s not a big bed, smaller than the one Andrew has on the _Bebop_ , just about enough for two people if they lie really close together. Neil seems to think along the same lines, because his eyes scan the room one more time and then land on the door.

“I could sleep on the sofa downstairs,” he says. “I’m sure the cats won’t mind sharing.”

“Or you could stay.”

“Or I could stay,” Neil echoes, lips furled in a subtle smile.

They take turns in the bathroom and Andrew smokes a cigarette out of the window for old time’s sake while Neil is in the shower. He contemplates his reflection in the smudged glass of the window and prods lightly at the edge of the new scar over his left eye. Abby told him to air it out as much as possible now so the bandages are off, but the eye is still swollen shut, an ugly pink lump on display for the world.

“Maybe you should consider a change in careers and become a pirate,” Neil says, closing the door behind him. “Then I could get you an eyepatch.”

“Never heard of a cowboy with an eyepatch?” Andrew asks, stubbing out his cigarette.

“Not really, but I guess you could be the first,” Neil shrugs. Andrew turns and Neil is leaning against the wall, arms loosely crossed, wearing boxers and the t-shirt Allison gave him. They’ve only spent a day on Europa but his legs have already grown at least a hundred new freckles that Andrew is itching to count and catalogue and trace with his tongue.

“Staring,” Neil hums softly.

“So?” Andrew challenges.

“ _So_ , maybe you should stop staring and start doing something.”

“Like what?”

Neil throws himself down on the bed and it rocks against the wall, creaking loudly. They both freeze for a moment, then Neil lets out a rushing breath laced with boozy, potent laughter. Andrew closes the window and walks over, crawling over him until he’s straddling his lap without touching him just yet.

“Like what?” he repeats, looking down at Neil’s face, open and relaxed and scrubbed clean, sunburnt and smelling like aloe and Bee’s lavender soap.

“Like kiss me,” Neil says, a bit huskily, arching his back. “And…”

He bites his bottom lip. Andrew bends down and teases it out from between his teeth with a light, lingering kiss.

“And?”

“You can touch me,” Neil murmurs, suddenly shy. “Wherever you want.”

“What about you?” Andrew murmurs back. “Where do you want to be touched?”

Neil thinks about this, chewing on his lip again, then takes one of Andrew’s hands and guides it to his hip where the hem of his t-shirt reveals a sliver of freckly skin. Andrew takes his time exploring underneath the fabric, soothing Neil with kisses while he pushes it up under his armpits, slowly rubs his thumb over a nipple until it peaks stiffly under his hand and Neil gasps quietly into his mouth.

Andrew’s thigh ends up between Neil’s. He can feel that Neil is hard, and after a while of kissing and teasing Neil starts to subtly roll his hips, almost-but-not-quite rubbing himself against him. Andrew presses one more kiss to his needy mouth and sits back, dragging his fingers down the length of Neil’s chest and stomach and trickling to a stop in the soft trail of hair leading from his navel beneath the waistband of his underwear.

Usually, at this stage, Andrew would make a suggestion – a demand – and wait for a yes or no. With Neil, though, he finds he wants to give up a little of that control.

“Neil,” he says, and it comes out low and gravelly. “Tell me what you want.”

Neil swallows thickly, his Adam’s apple bobbing in the light of the bedside lamp. Even his throat is freckly. Andrew tugs on his waistband and lets it snap back against his skin, cups his hand around a freckled knee and smooths his thumb over the soft skin in the crook of the joint, making Neil shiver.

“You,” Neil stutters out, “I want you.”

“How do you want me?” Andrew asks patiently.

“I don’t know,” Neil sighs, frustrated, pushing his head back into the pillow. “I just… this happens so rarely. I don’t know.”

“But it has happened,” Andrew deduces.

“Yes. Once or twice.”

“And what did you do then?”

“Do you really want to know?” Neil checks, frowning slightly.

“Yes.”

“There was a girl,” Neil says slowly, fingers finding the patch of ruined wallpaper and picking at it idly. “On one of Jupiter’s moons. We were on the same shift in one of the greenhouses, my mom was on a different one. We met up without her knowing, for a few months before we moved on. Then there was a guy on Venus, but that didn’t last as long. I kissed a few people in between. That’s about it.”

“Did you sleep with any of them?” Andrew asks, still tracing patterns on Neil’s bent knee.

“Yeah,” Neil says, shrugging awkwardly. “I mean, I guess. If you count, you know. Oral.”

“It counts,” Andrew assures him. “Do you want to do that?”

“Um.” Neil blinks. “Now?”

“Now,” Andrew nods, “or some other time. You don’t have to.”

“No, I know that,” Neil smiles. “I… yeah. Yeah, I’d like… that. You, uh, going down on me. Or the other way around. Or just, you know, hands.”

Andrew tips his head to the side, amused.

“You are usually so mouthy,” he notes. “Have I made you lose your words?”

Neil’s ears turn pink and he swats weakly at Andrew’s arm, pushing himself up on his elbows.

“Well, what did you expect? You did just kiss me, and now you’re asking all these questions instead of kissing me some more,” he says defiantly, a challenge in his eyes and the tilt of his chin. Andrew twitches an eyebrow at him and leans down to accept the challenge, and then Neil snags his shirt and pulls him down properly on top of him and Andrew doesn’t even mind, too busy mapping his mouth with his tongue. Neil rolls his hips against him again, slowly and carefully. Humming, Andrew sucks and nibbles his way down Neil’s body, skipping his hips and sliding his fingers under the hem of his boxers instead, digging them into the firm muscles of his thighs and the dip of his groin. Neil makes a mumbly, impatient sound and Andrew nuzzles him through the fabric, inhaling the heady scent of him and mouthing at his erection until the front of his boxers clings damply to him.

“Mmmndrew,” Neil mumbles, hands twisted in the sheets. Andrew would rather they were twisted in his hair, so he pries them loose and guides them to his head, where they wind in his hair very gently, mindful not to pull.

Sometimes, in the right situation, Andrew actually likes the pulling, but he’s grateful for Neil’s restraint right now.

“Still yes?” Andrew checks. When Neil hums a sloppy answer, he hooks his fingers under Neil’s waistband and rolls it down his legs. He looks deliciously indecent, spread out underneath Andrew with his t-shirt pushed up and his boxers around his knees, pupils dilated and hair a wicked mess, kiss-sore and achingly hard. A noisy gust of air escapes him when Andrew takes his cock in hand and gives it a few rough strokes, then something like a surprised moan as Andrew wraps his lips around the tip and sucks hard.

He doesn’t get any louder than that, but there are a myriad of tiny, secret noises spilling from him that Andrew laps up like sugar. Andrew alternates between sucking him down and jerking him off, pulling out all the little tricks he’s learned over the last years and some he picked up in juvie. He has Neil a quivering mess in no time, tense all over and trying so hard to hold on to his slipping self-control. Andrew can tell every time he’s getting close to the brink of orgasm, but he lasts an impressive amount of time – or maybe that’s just normal for him, maybe it always takes him this long – and when he finally comes he has enough wits still to warn Andrew so he can pull off in time. All the little noises crescendo in complete, trembling silence as he spills over Andrew’s hand, and Andrew nestles one last kiss in the dip of his hipbone before sitting up.

Neil looks at him through lowered lashes, flushed and boneless, catching his breath. He makes a weak little motion with his hand until Andrew bends down and kisses him.

“Um, thanks,” he mutters hoarsely against Andrew’s mouth. “That was… you’re really good.”

Andrew pushes down the small rush of triumph and nips at Neil’s lower lip.

“Go clean up,” he tells him.

“You’re still hard,” Neil murmurs, rubbing their noses together.

“So?”

“So, do you want…?”

Andrew considers it, but he knows he won’t last very long, not after the show Neil just gave him, with his taste still heavy on his tongue. He grunts and pushes Neil down with another kiss, shoving a hand in his sweatpants to finish himself off quickly. The noise Neil makes is far too happy about that but Andrew is close, so fucking close, and Neil’s still there, warm and sticky and sweaty and smug, mouthing at his jaw and licking down his throat–

“Fuck,” he hisses, the itchy relief of orgasm shuddering through him. Neil huffs a little laugh against his neck and bites him gently, humming when it sends another shivery aftershock down Andrew’s body, and Andrew pushes his head away and gets up on slightly unsteady legs.

It’s Neil’s own fault that Andrew claims the bathroom first. He didn’t have to stick around, after all.

*

They leave early the next morning, after a hearty breakfast courtesy of Bee, leaving their ships at the workshop in her capable hands. The Maserati purrs under Andrew’s foot on the gas pedal, the desert stretches ahead for miles in front of them. The radio blasts some weird local electro blues and the sky is a dusty denim blue, not a single cloud in sight. Neil rolls down the window and lets the wind ravage his hair, arms bare and knee bouncing to the music, a smile twitching on his mouth like waves frothing at a calm beach.

They stop by an old fruit truck around midday and Neil buys an entire watermelon off the vendor, cutting out two thick slices and handing one over to Andrew as they look for a good spot to take a break. Andrew tosses the rind out of the window and drives them to a nearby town that Neil finds on Bee’s map. Most of the inhabitants are inside at this time of day, napping in the shade, but there’s a Western style saloon that’s open, and Andrew yanks Neil to a stop before they go in to lick a sweet trickle of watermelon juice from his chin.

They get distracted kissing in the shade for a while, until Neil’s stomach growls.

After a cold lunch and a few drinks they drive on. When the evening catches up with them, turning up the contrast on the landscape around them and casting everything in soft blueish light, they set up camp at the foot of a hill, gather wood for a small fire and settle down for the night.

“Will you play another song?” Neil asks, twirling the harmonica in his hand. Andrew takes it from him and plays a slightly mangled version of a song called _Space Fox_. His memory has started to become a little fuzzy around the edges now, without the constant input loop from his left eye, but he remembers enough to make it sound coherent and improvises the rest. It’s a new experience, and he thinks he likes it.

Neil wraps a blanket around them both and puts his head on Andrew’s shoulder, watching the fire dance and the stars pop out. He’s asleep by the time Andrew grows tired of playing. The fire has mostly burned down, but the light from it still smoulders in Neil’s hair. Andrew chases after the glow with his fingers, winding the curls around them and disentangling the knots in his hair, and Neil makes a snuffly sigh in his sleep and nuzzles deeper into the crook of Andrew’s neck.

It’s strange to close his eyes and see only darkness, like relaxing a muscle that has been tense for years. Andrew blinks them open again and thinks about spending a few more days at Bee’s place when they get back from their road trip, about visiting Nicky and Aaron again and taking Andrea’s bike for another spin with Neil at his back, about going back to the _Bebop_ and back on the hunt but with Neil at his side. Thinks about putting an end to Easthaven once and for all and letting the past be the past, because he has a future just waiting to be seen.

The stars are splayed out above, winking and beckoning. Andrew taps a small salute to his forehead for them, then drops his gaze back to Neil and starts counting the freckles on his collarbone where his shirt hangs loose.

The thing about freckles is that they constantly change. Andrew will have to start over every day if he wants to keep track of them. It is, as Kevin would say, an exercise in futility.

Somehow, though, Andrew doesn’t mind.

[ ](https://www.flickr.com/photos/143876612@N03/44395656482/in/album-72157695091145580/)

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks so much for reading! Feedback n love appreciated :D My tumblr is [annawrites](https://annawrites.tumblr.com/), come say hi if you like :)


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